Parapoetica

infosnacking: checking e-mail, Googling sports scores, shopping online and surfing the latest headlines. It’s the Webster’s New World College Dictionary Word of 2005.

Via Adweek

If you thought there was no innovation left in e-commerce, you thought wrong. I just ordered a nice ski jacket from Moosejaw. Not only did they ship quickly, but instead of the usual, boring boilerplate e-mails, I get updates like this:

Your Order Tracking and Order Summary Information is below. We recommend printing this information and mounting it into a mahogany frame for a foyer or living room. If you don’t have a printer they’re very easy to steal from a friend and bring back later, just something to keep in mind.

Now that’s fun shopping.

We can’t become an outcome-based democracy. Even in a time of war, you have to follow the process because that’s what a democracy is all about.
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Face the Nation (via the WP)

Who’dathunk I’d be quoting a Republican from South Carolina about governance?

John Durkin, the Internet sales person at JD, left me a friendly, concerned voicemail last month that I’m only just now getting around to returning. (My computer died, and I could not seem to build a working one. Who do I call for tech support? Four, count’em, four dead components later…) Turns out he’s been out with pneumonia as well.

When I reached him today, he was just heading out to lunch with his department, but we had a nice conversation, and I think, as he put it , that two reasonable people can always come to a resolution. Both John and Ron Dubin, the CFO, would like to reach an agreement on this—and I’d like nothing more than to get some closure, and feel that I made the right choice buying the car from Jack Daniels Motors.

We’ll hopefully talk today or Tuesday. I think there’s hope here.

Finally: a drug made for people like me. By people like me.

You can be concise, or you can be precise, but you can’t be both.

Or, more precisely: You can usually explain most concepts in a way that is clear, intuitive, and overly general, or you can explain that same concept by stating its core principles, and then using specific examples, counterexamples, boundary conditions, and qualifications to define many, but certainly not all, of its contours, to the extent that most people will apprehend a general sense of the concept, even if they aren’t fully capable of understanding all its nuances.

See what I mean?

I’m going to be concise.

The more we learn about the brain, the more we discover that we’re not as in charge as we think we are. First, we act; second, we decide that we were going to have acted. We’re not rational creatures; we’re rationalizing creatures. We’re mammals with language skills.

You can see this in the classic split-brain studies. They showed different pictures to each hemisphere of the brain, and asked the subject to point to related objects. The left hemisphere saw a chicken foot, and the left-hemisphere hand pointed to a chicken. The right hemisphere saw a winter scene, and the right-hemisphere hand pointed to a shovel. No surprises there.

Then they asked the subject why he pointed to the shovel. To verbalize the answer, he had to use his left hemisphere – which had no idea why he pointed to a shovel. So it made something up! He answered: “I’d use the shovel to clean out the chicken house”. Perfectly rational..ized.

Other studies show that, if we try to pinpoint the exact moment we made a decision, it’s after our motor cortexes already started firing. Perfectly rationalized.

Does that mean we have no free will, or that thinking is pointless? I don’t think so. But it means that behavioral conditioning might “teach” us better than cognitive explanations would.

Equally important: It means that I have to stop being mad at people who aren’t being rational. Why should they be?

Then again, why should I assume that cognitively understanding this will change my own behavior?

I want the president to look across the country and find the best man, woman or minority that he can find…

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Trent Lott. (via the Daily Dish)

Too cool. A page full of a particular kind of optical illusion: Still pictures that appear to move.

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

I’m going to be wrong. Frequently. If I can be right more so than I’m wrong, I win anyway.

Everyone knows the old saying: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

For every novice question on a mailing list, you’ll find three experts answering, “Google it!” The wisest expert will even include a pre-formed search phrase. “Try googling ‘how to fish.’”

The old saying’s wrong.

Here’s why: The answers are archived. Every mailing list and IRC chat log is, itself, being parsed and ranked by search engines like Google. And guess what ends up polluting the top search results for “how to fish”?

“Try googling ‘how to fish.’”

This is the Law of Emergent Fish:

1. When somebody asks a technical question, someone else will answer with “Google it.”

2. The original question would, absent this law, be the best Google-juice for the answer.

3. Therefore: The shortest answer containing the original question will garner the most Google-juice per word.

4. Answers are newer than the questions they answer.

5. Newer content gets ranked higher than older content.

6. Therefore: Over time, the least useful answers will emerge at the top of the search results—which makes them not only useless, but harmful.

7. Corollary: Any answer containing an actual link to a Google search will end up linking to itself. (e.g. “Why don’t you try searching for Law of Emergent Fish?”)

A guy I know just sent me the ubiquitous “boycott ExxonMobil” chain letter. (I won’t call him a friend, because anyone who sends me chain letters is no friend of mine.) Now, this isn’t that don’t-buy-gas for a day letter, no, because that would be stupid. Even this chain letter knows that.

No, this one suggests we use the power of geometric growth to fuel our non-fueling: Just send the letter to 10 people, and buy gas anywhere but ExxonMobil. Then send it to their friends, and so on, and so on, and not only are we all using the same shampoo, but:

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it….. THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

What upsets me is not that the premise is horribly flawed to anyone with half a brain (that is to say, anyone not living in Boston): What upsets me is that the author takes a perfectly good idea, and squanders it by not carrying through on the vision. Why on earth are we stopping at three hundred million?

Why on earth, indeed. All we have to do is take it two steps further, and we’ve got this e-mail going to THIRTY BILLION PEOPLE. That’s FIVE TIMES the population of the Earth. Do you know what that means?

OK, I’ll spell it out for you geniuses. How many CEOs of ExxonMobil are there? Right. One. And we know the population of the Earth: Six billion. So the odds of any one person being the CEO of ExxonMobil is 1 in 6 billion.

Now. We just sent our chain letter to 30 billion people, but that’s more people than actually exist. Which means that all six billion people have BETTER than 100% odds of receiving this letter. INCLUDING THE CEO!

Did you catch that? The CEO of ExxonMobil has ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE better odds at receiving the chain letter than he does of EXISTING AT ALL! That means that the CEO of ExxonMobil will be PART OF THE CHAIN! I repeat…

+THE CEO OF EXXONMOBIL WILL BE BOYCOTTING HIS OWN STATIONS!!!!+

Once that happens, all we have to do is call a few TV stations, broadcast that on the news, and he’ll HAVE to lower the price. I know a few freelance reporters I can call. I’m sure some of you do too.

Let’s get cracking.

Today’s Washington Post Style Invitational entries are a cut above. The contest: Using only words found in the Constitution, come up with additional proposed amendments. The winners:

Third runner-up: No person of excessive tonnage shall remove his jersey at a public event. (Pam Sweeney, Germantown)

Second runner-up: Congress shall make no laws that direct people to work out with weights and engage in regular body training. We the People are no longer into the exercise thing. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)

First runner-up, the winner of the Snake Wine containing a whole snake: No persons shall in all cases be given what they do desire but, upon trial, at times may be informed that they shall receive that for which they be needful. — M. Jagger (Russell Beland, Springfield)

And the winner of the Inker: Those persons resident in the District are second-class, inferior citizens. But they have the right to death, taxes and post offices. (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.)

As always, the runners-up are every bit as good. Read them.

OK. It’s really simple. Really.

Did the New Orleans and Louisiana governments completely screw up? Of course. But come on, man. They’re from Louisiana. This is the state where “Governor” is just a stepping stone on the career path to “felon”. Of course they can’t handle the biggest hurricane to hit us in modern times.

But was it the federal government’s job to step in and fix things? Unequivocably, absolutely, yes. But don’t take my word for it; I’m a big-government Democrat. Take the word of the Republican-created, Republican-run Department of Homeland Security, from their own catastrophic incident master National Response Plan, which reads like, well, a guide to exactly what should have been done—but wasn’t.

Let’s cover a few common right-wing claims:

Claim: It’s not the federal government’s responsibility to deal with a hurricane. In fact, it’s unconstitutional for them to do so!"

A catastrophic incident, as defined by the NRP, is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption…All catastrophic incidents are Incidents of National Significance…

Recognizing that Federal and/or national resources are required to augment overwhelmed State, local, and tribal response efforts, the NRPCIA establishes protocols to preidentify and rapidly deploy key essential resources (e.g., medical teams, urban search and rescue teams, transportable shelters, medical and equipment caches, etc.) that are expected to be urgently needed/required to save lives and contain incidents…

Claim: Louisiana didn’t ask for help quickly enough; the feds had to wait for the state.

Federal support must be provided in a timely manner to save lives, prevent human suffering, and mitigate severe damage. This may require mobilizing and deploying assets before they are requested via normal NRP protocols…

Notification and full coordination with States occur, but the coordination process should not delay or impede the rapid mobilization and deployment of critical Federal resources.

In fact, in the checklist for “What to do in a catastrophe”, coordinating with state and locals is dead last. Steps 1, 2, and 3 are to get every federal resource out there.

Claim: It took a few days to figure out what the (constantly-changing) situation was on the ground.

A detailed and credible common operating picture may not be achievable for 24 to 48 hours (or longer) after the incident. As a result, response activities must begin without the benefit of a detailed or complete situation and critical needs assessment…

Unless it can be credibly established that a mobilizing Federal resource identified in the NRP-CIS is not needed at the catastrophic incident venue, that resource deploys.

Claim: The government didn’t drop the ball, because there was nothing they could do.

There are 15 Emergency Support Function resources identified. Transportation, Communications, Search and Rescue, Public Safety, you get the idea. Everything NOLA needed is right there. And, according to the ERP, they should all be sent. And they should all be sent immediately.

So… What could the government have done? Everything it says it’s supposed to do. That’s all.

Any questions?

Alexander Chappell, a Clarkson University senior, died Saturday after trying to cliff-dive into Lake Bonaparte. There’s a low cliff there, where people can dive into deep water. But Chappell tried diving off a much higher cliff, 80 to 100 feet up, which was farther back from the water.

Chappell’s major? Mechanical engineering.

Michael ‘The Interdictor’ Barnett is a data-center crisis manager in the heart of New Orleans who’s been keeping the world updated via his LiveJournal. He’s also ex-Special Forces, and has run a tight ship, securing the building, patrolling the area, obtaining supplies.

This morning, the 82nd Airborne saw the lights on, and came up to investigate. Which means that the formerly-barricaded emergency exit was now open and unguarded, in a city where people are being killed for their bicycles. They claimed they found it that way.

So, naturally, he requested their assistance in sweeping the building to ensure that nobody else was present. The 27-floor building. With no elevators.

Ten thumbs up and a simultaneous hat tip to Mike! Patrolling is one thing. Breaking in, and lying about it to a citzen, is quite another.

Sign in the repair shop of a Natick car dealer:

Want to sign up for e-mails about upcoming specials while getting serviced?

Courtesy of Mom

If there is no self,
whose arthritis is this?

Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?

Drink tea and nourish life.
With the first sip… joy.
With the second… satisfaction.
With the third, peace.
With the fourth, a danish.

Wherever you go, there you are.
Your luggage is another story.

Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health or a life without problems.
What would you talk about?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single “oy.”

There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life, you never called,
you never wrote, you never visited.
And whose fault was that?

Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.

The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenment
will be the least of your problems.

Let your mind be as a floating cloud.
Let your stillness be as the wooded glen.
And sit up straight. You’ll never meet the
Buddha with such rounded shoulders.

To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance,
do the following: Get rid of the motorcycle.
What were you thinking?

Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation
is a symptom of a terminal illness.

The Torah says,“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
The Buddha says there is no “self.”
So, maybe you are off the hook.

The Buddha taught that one should practice loving
kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you
to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?

Though only your skin, sinews, and bones remain,
though your blood and flesh dry up and wither away,
yet shall you meditate and not stir
until you have attained full Enlightenment.
But, first, a little nosh.

Attention, all Boston women on JDate: Here are some things you should know.

• Your screen name defines you. If you define yourself by what you like to watch other people do, THIS IS WHY YOU ARE STILL SINGLE. (This means you, BoSox ladies.)

• If your photo includes you holding a small child, I’m going to assume it’s yours.

• If your photo includes you holding a man, I’m going to assume he’s yours.

• If your photo includes you holding a white square space where a man used to be, I’m going to assume you’re an idiot.

• If you cannot spell your own occupation, I’m going to be sure you’re an idiot. Double penalties if you’re a teacher. Triple penalties if you actually invent a word, such as “appreciatative”. QUADRUPLE penalties if you misspell your own invented word as “appreciatitive”.

• Speaking of which: Why are all of you teachers? I mean, great, think of the children, they’re our future, etc., but come on—can’t I meet a particle physicist once in a while? Sorry, but with the exception of Jaime Escalante, I don’t usually find teachers all that fascinating. Neither do you, and that’s why you’re on JDate instead of scoping out the new social studies hire in the break room.

• Your photo should not, in any way, resemble Tammy Faye Bakker.

• If you can’t come up with 100 words without complaining about having to come up with 100 words, you are either dull-witted or dull. THIS IS ALSO WHY YOU ARE STILL SINGLE.

• If the first sentence of your profile repeats your age and city, see above.

• If the first sentence of your profile not only repeats but actually differs from the age or city in your profile, you are not only unimaginative, but very, very strange.

• “Slender” means “average”. “Average” means “a few extra pounds”. “A few extra pounds” means “fat”. “Voluptuous” means “When I sit around the house, I really sit around the house.”

• Your photo should not, in any way, resemble Stevie Nicks.

• Avoid cliches. Avoid tautologies. Avoid stating the self-evident. (See ClicheBoy for examples.) Here’s a helpful hint: For every sentence you write, you should be able to find someone who would say “Oh, I disagree”. Let’s test that out. “I like to laugh.” BUZZ. “I dress up sometimes and wear sweats at other times.” BUZZ! “I want someone who can be my lover and my best friend.” BUZZ! BUZZ BUZZ! “Communication is key.” Jesus H. BUZZ!

• Do not attempt to make a joke unless you have been told by someone outside your family that you are funny.

• Corollary: If you have to say “I’m just kidding”, you’re not funny.

• Your photo should not, in any way, resemble Gracie Allen.

• Flying to Paris is not a suitable first date. Please read the question again.

• Six non-cliche phrases that should still never appear in your profile:
  • I have been single by choice for over…
  • I’m sexy.
  • I tend to be sarcastic
  • mind games
  • I grew up in New Jersey
  • their baggage

• Your photo should not, in any way, resemble Steve Allen.

• Five sentences that don’t mean what you think they mean:
  • “A perfect match for me would be someone with a heart of gold as well as my best friend.”
  • “I could be found in sweats sipping tea by the fire or at a black tie affair.”
  • " I am looking for someone who is ready to share their lives with the right person."
  • “I am also looking for that mental connection; in other words, someone who I look forward to talking to after getting to know that person.”
  • " I am well travelled."

Got Jack Daniels Motors horror stories of your own, buying or servicing your Audi, VW, or Porsche? Post a comment here!

Wow… I just checked out Jack Daniels’s eviews":http://bit.ly/Y9Nj3 at http://1.8t.org, an Audi/VW dealer rating site.

There are 576 American and Canadian Audi and VW dealers listed there. Each review can give anywhere from -2 to +2 points to a dealer. Jack Daniels Motors has 41 reviews totalling -21 points.

This puts them in 564th place.

Let’s ponder that. Most review sites are going to have more complaints than praise, because irate customers want to tell everyone they know. But presumably that bias affects all car dealers equally. Yet out of nearly 600 dealers reviewed on 1.8t…

There are only 12 dealers in North America worse than Jack Daniels Motors.

Can I pick ’em, or what?

I got a call today from Bret’s supervisor, Nahed B. She was supposed to call me last Thursday, between 2 and 3pm; she says that she called my cell phone, and got a message that it had been disconnected. Well, yes, if you call the cell phone I used to have in Virginia five years ago, you’re going to find that. (Pause) “Okay. I am sorry about that.” By the way, I’m now recording these calls (legally, with notice), so from here on in, anything in quotes is verbatim.

She was much more sympathetic than Bret had been. She agreed that the car should not have been certified until the keys were found, and was astounded at the dealer’s lack of response: “You shouldn’t be getting this treatment from a dealership!” she exclaimed several times. On that, we agree.

She was also interested to know that, so far as I know, Jack Daniels has not disputed that the tires were bad. They’ve only declined to help me.

That’s the good part. The bad part is that, despite the sympathy and righteous indignation she felt for me, she didn’t sound authorized to actually do anything more than Bret could. All she can do is call the dealer and advocate on my behalf. But it’s too early to re-argue that point; she still thinks she can get somewhere with Jack Daniels Motors. Well, she can try.

I told her what my expected resolution was. At least, I tried to tell her, but she was more interested in getting off the phone. Nonetheless, I believe I managed to present these terms:

• I’m willing to split the cost of tires and wheels with the dealership—that is, I’d accept $700, not $1400. (I’m feeling generous today. That can’t last.)
• I want the key adaptation done here, not in NJ.
• I want JD, Audi, or somebody to pay for my car to be inspected here for any of the points covered by the CPO warranty—not the original CPO inspection, but merely any of the things that would be covered IF they went wrong.
• I did not get to mention the steering-wheel logo, as she was rushing me off the phone.

In other words, I have now significantly, though temporarily, lowered my demands for resolution. And she’s going to call me back in 24-48 hours. Let’s see if this honey catches a fly.

Amy from Audi called today; Nahed had referred my case to her. Apparently, my case finally got the executive attention it deserves, and they’re not taking any prisoners this time. See what a little blogging can do? You’ll never guess what Audi of America has in store for Jack Daniels Motors. In fact, Amy called to let me know that the first step has been taken, a step that cannot be reversed, a step of such monumental import that it fills me with tears and pride to know it was done on my behalf:

+She left Frank a voicemail.+

OK. To be fair, she did promise that she would try Frank every day this time, or even twice daily, rather than once a week. Her plan is to be “tenacious.” And she did promise that, if necessary, she would be able to escalate past the dealer to the regional manager. But she has to give them another “opportunity” first.

I post enough complaints in this section, so it’s time for a cheer: Cisco tech support rocks.

I bought a new Pix-501 firewall yesterday. I previously had a cheapo consumer Linksys BEFSR11, and I haven’t done any serious network configuration since 1992. It’s become more complex, apparently.

So I installed the firewall, and it mostly worked, but I couldn’t make outbound web requests. Called tech support, filed a
etwork down" ticket, and within a few minutes, got a delightful callback from Ciel P. She walked me through setting up the Pix to grant her access, then proceeded to ssh into it, configure my network for me, and call me back 10 minutes later to tell me it was done and verify that it worked. She then sent a followup e-mail, detailing what had changed. Plus, she was friendly, funny, and knowledgeable. What more can you ask for?

Amy called back today. She exchanged voicemails with Frank, who reiterated that Jack Daniels would not address my complaint any further. And that’s all that Audi Customer Advocacy can do. She suggested that if I want to complain about Audi’s corporate policies, I write to their VP, Johan De Nysschen. I decided to write to the Michigan AG instead, since Audi’s making false representations (according to their own customer advocates). The complaint, #cp26ev390y, is below the break.

Of course, this site is about Jack Daniels Motors, not just Audi of America. So what now? Jack Daniels sold me a car in unsafe condition and sent me on a 300-mile drive home. They refuse to return my phone calls; they refuse even to get me my replacement key unless I drive back to New Jersey! And I’m now officially out of standard customer escalation options.

There are a number of options, both publicity-wise and legally. I have a few ideas, but I welcome suggestions.

You could walk into a store and grab a product at random and it would look more like an abominable snowman than this toy does.

From bubblegumfink via boingboing

Computer scientists: “Electronic voting machines are fraught with risk. A hacker or rogue programmer could easily change the outcome of an election without leaving any evidence!”

Skeptics: “Yes, but is there any evidence of that?”

Courtesy of Deborah Foner…

Hey! Get back indoors. Whatever you were doing Could put an eye out.

• Get my work done tonight, even if I’m tired. I will not get up early to do it. Ever.

• Never send e-mail after taking Ambien.

• Always check if it’s game day before driving to Berklee.

• Never snack right from the box.

• I cannot get to Coolidge Corner in 20 minutes.

The DNC has already put out a commercial about Bush’s ight track, wrong track":http://www.johnkerry.com/video/092404_right_track.html comment in Iraq. But they’re missing the real kicker. If the right track/wrong track numbers are better in Iraq than America, then that means that Americans think things are even worse here than they are in Iraq! What, exactly, does that say about the past four years of leadership?

I read a great zinger by xysrl on DailyKos:

Mr. Bush, over 3000 Americans in NYC died under your watch. 1.5 million Americans lost their jobs under your watch. Another 1.2 million Americans slipped into poverty under your watch.

Mr. Bush, what in hell are you watching?

People new to the DAW mix-in-the-box world often ask “how do I lay out a patch bay?”, or post messages looking for templates. It’s especially difficult in the DAW world, where you don’t really have channels, inserts, and effects in the classic analog sense; everything’s a gozinta and a gozouta.

After working with my patchbay for a year, I came up with the following redesign, so I thought I’d share it. Some notes:

I just wanted Google to know that, on JDate, I’m known as “JayJayBoBay”, as well as “ClicheBoy”. So I’m telling it. The rest of you can ignore this. That’s all. Just a little search optimization. Nothing to see here. Please disperse.

Baby Kooshes!

So ugly, they’re cute.

From LiewCF.com via Boing Boing

Today’s Globe wins the prize for the most convoluted story lead I’ve ever read:

A federal prosecutor yesterday urged a judge to reject a request by the media to lift a protective order that forbids the release of evidence that the government has turned over to defense lawyers in its perjury case against former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran.

Judge urged to reject perjury case request

UPDATE: Apparently the Globe is just asleep at the keys today. In other stories, we had:

• Homocide detectives
• A teacher who received $60,ooo in contributions (somebody grew up on a typewriter, eh?)

Oh, and mad-but-dubious props to Adam for his stet pun.

People of different temperaments have different ways of making decisions. Which group do you fall into?

dl. Group 1. Flexible:Changing your mind in the presence of new information
Group 2. Vacillating:Changing your mind upon the prospect of new information
Group 3. Obsessive:Prospecting for new information to change your mind

Hint: If you’ve ever had this conversation:

You:	Let’s have lunch this week.
Friend:	Sure! How’s Wednesday?
You:	Perfect.
Friend:	Great. Have anyplace in mind?
You:	Do you like Trident?
Friend:	Of course. What time?
You:	12 o’clock?
Friend:	Sounds like a plan. Seeya then.
You:	Or we could eat at Top of the Hub.
Friend:	Sure, either one works for me.
You:	Top of the Hub has a nicer atmosphere.
Friend:	Great. Top of the Hub it is.
You:	Tuesday’s open, too.

You fall into group 3.

I don’t know much about Sudan. Until this morning, I didn’t know precisely where it was. I don’t know anyone from there; I don’t know what the prominent religion is. I don’t know what the Janjawid militias want, and what the Ivory Coast (on the other side of Africa) has to do with the whole thing. I don’t know anything about the political situation, and I don’t know the eloquent words to write to stir people to passion. Which doesn’t matter, because I have no idea what it is we as individuals can possibly do.

I just know that they’re burning children alive (via) over there, and that 60 years ago, when this happened to my ancestors, nobody did anything. And we said never again, and it’s happening again.

At the start of class one day, my mix professor’s bag fell four feet from the counter to the floor. We all sort of looked at each other, and someone said “That can’t be good.”

His laptop was in a padded sleeve, though, so we assumed it was okay. What we hadn’t counted on was the Digidesign Mbox in the next compartment. This little device has two pointy feet, and one pointed right into the laptop when it fell. It made a dent in the titanium lid of the Powerbook, and shattered the screen.

Here’s what it looked like:

Moral: Never buy Digidesign.

The Walt Disney Corporation declared today that Pluto is no longer a dog, downgrading its status to a two-dimensional cartoon character.

via Tom Keane

I simply cannot believe it. From an otherwise-respectable conservative blog comes the claim that yes, of course, Saddam was connected to 9/11, because – and you have to follow this closely:

1. Hussein was an evil madman who was getting out of control by 1990.
2. So we were forced to whoop his ass in the Persian Gulf War.
3. Which continued/increased our presence in Saudi Arabia.
4. Which pissed Osama bin Laden off.
5. Which caused him to issue the fatwa against the US.
6. Which led directly to 9/11.

That’s an exact, undistorted summary of the logic found in the
National Review’s MediaBlog. Let’s boil that down even further:

• Saddam caused 9/11 because he made us attack him which made bin Laden hate us and thus attack us.

Wow.

In other news, Thomas Edison also caused 9/11, because his popularization of the light bulb and, thus, the electric grid led directly to our Internet-driven world, which enabled terrorist groups like Al Qaeda to organize into anonymous remote “cells” without any traceable contact. Menlo Park, batten your hatches.

Greetings, esteemed committee members of the Top Secret No Dorks Allowed Clubhouse.

I have a small facilities update. As was brought up in our last “town hall” meeting, several members are unhappy with the new merry-go-round. (Speaking of the meeting: Kudos to the twins, Dustin and Justin, for nabbing their mom’s hidden stash of Double-Stuf Oreos. I nominate them for the Heroic Catering award.) Although the Dada-inspired paint scheme is more aesthetically pleasing and play-inspiring than the old brown-and-green palette, and we certainly appreciate the molded seats – except Ollie, ha ha! – many of us feel that the initial and sustaining forces required to turn the merry-go-round are excessive. As promised, I brought in several engineering firms on a sealed-bid project to investigate, with the winner, WSP Cantor Seinuk, providing experienced engineers from both their London and New York offices.

The full PDF is available in the archives, but let me summarize the results: it seems that someone may be utilizing our collective kinetic energy to power a public waterworks, in violation of the Keating Owen Child Labor Act. We will be investigating further tomorrow, at midnight – meet at the knotty oak next to the merry-go-round. Bring flashlights, shovels, and sweaters – it’s cold outside. No girls or dorks allowed. I cannot attend, since I’m not allowed to cross the street after dark, but I will be available by cell phone.

Boing Boing: Water pump driven by kids’ roundabout

Surreal audiosensory experience of the day: Pressing the “on” button on my M3 Power razor… just as the neighbor starts up his weedwhacker.

As all my friends know, I’m so addicted to caffeine that I can’t even wait to get to Starbucks – I have my own superautomatic espresso maker that grinds, tamps and pours me a great shot with one button. But for good espresso, you need good beans, and they don’t stay fresh for long.

Enter The Roasted Bean. For less than the cost of a pound of beans at Whole Foods, they’ll Priority-Mail a pound of fresh-roasted, vacuum-packed beans—any blend you choose, or make up your own. And if you want, they’ll send it every month automatically—you can make up your own “coffee of the month” club selection if you like. They’re quite flexible.

I have no affiliation with them; I’m just a fan. A really, really alert fan.

I’m going on a weekend trip to Mount Snow. I just checked out the web site of the lodge we’re staying at, and found this copy:

Opened in 1964 and located near the base of Mount Snow, Snow Lake Lodge provides the ambience of a traditional ski lodge of a bygone era for the more budget conscious visitors to our resort.

Yes, kids, somebody went to euphemism school. Hey, let’s look at that again:

Opened in 1964 and located near the base of Mount Snow, Snow Lake Lodge provides the ambience of a traditional ski lodge of a bygone era for the more budget conscious visitors to our resort.

I hope there is some traditional, ambient air conditioning, or I will be bygone to the nice hotel across the lake.

Berklee’s curriculum and faculty are mostly top-notch, but their audio electronics theory leaves much to be desired. Some crazy stuff I’ve “learned” in the past few weeks:

• A balanced output works by switching the positive and negative wires. The input just sums them together.

• The only difference between radio signals and sound waves is the frequency. If you take a sound wave and increase the frequency it becomes electromagnetic.

• Digital delays with “tap” functions aren’t as accurate as a tape delay, because if the beat of the music falls on the off-beat of the tapping you just did, the first delay will be early.

• All stereo sources should be panned hard left and right.

Sigh.

Update 7/24:

As Preben Friis has pointed out, genuine stereo sources or effects should in fact be panned hard left and right when using mono channels with pan pots, and the faders should be used to simulate a balance control. With mono pan pots, if you (say) pan the left channel to 9 o’clock and right to 12 o’clock, you’ll end up bringing right-channel information over to the left channel, possibly causing some cancellation, and certainly destroying stereo information.

From the files…

February, 2002, sign in a Medford convenience store window:

NEW’SPAPERS FOR SALE

Jean-Paul Sartre’s taken up UI design. Seen on the ATM at the end of Newbury street:

ENTER TO EXIT

Last fall, as the temperature dropped, the smokers at Back Bay station stopped smoking near the doorway and started smoking on the platforms. I begged management to put up more prominent No Smoking" sighs for three months, to no avail, so I finally installed a few myself in a case of constructive vandalism.

Well, when they swept the station as part of the DNC beautification, they removed them. I guess I should have put flowers in front of them or something.

Kerry Campaigner: Hi, would you like to help elect John Kerry?

Me: No. But I see no other choice.

Just read about the case of Sundeep Sahni, a Sikh at Boston College who was detained for hours by the Secret Service because he was taking pictures of the campus. Agents lied to his friends, saying he had a criminal record, and at one point told him “I don’t want you pulling an Uzi from your turban.” Oddly enough, only he was questioned; the owner of the camera, a Muslim from Saudi Arabia (but one in Western-style dress) was not.

I don’t know which is worse – making assumptions about an entire race of people based on the actions of a few, or making assumptions about another race of people because they look (to Caucasian eyes) sort of like the first class of people, or the inability of our supposedly crack Secret Service to know the difference between an Indian and an Arab. It’s inhumanity compounded with ineptitude.

I don’t think anyone reading this blog wants to buy a house, but this might help Google out. So: I’m selling a carriage house in Wellesley, MA, near Boston, MA, convenient to the South End, Back Bay, Financial District, Cambridge, Somerville, Natick, and Framingham.