The BlakeBlog

Retirement does strange things to some people. One guy has decided his hobby is to build a Stonehenge replica in his backyard using just rocks, wood and manpower. He's currently moving and raising 10-ton blocks by himself with no ropes or pulleys. Put your mouse over any black pictures to start an animation.

Stop drooling, Terry.

Of course there's a lot more to be found, but I stumbled across these and the first one listed got me to spend time on the rest.

The rules are simple:  Stare and the screen, then look at your hand. I saw this a few years back and had forgotten how well it works.

See over 100 posters by the late Rick Griffin. His work included a lot of album covers, probably most recognizable in his Grateful Dead covers, as well as Zap Comix.

Visual Overdose, Energisers and other Crazy Images from Eyvind Almquist of Virtual-Exp Psy.

Java-Fuxation and many other trippy voyages from Entropy8zuper, the people who brought us Venus Trap

There's a lot more LSD inspired/related links at Best Psychedelics in the World, which is where these came from. Some have cool graphics, some are historical, some are just pro-acid articles. Go for the graphics.

Many a time I've said to someone: It's on my blog, look there. The problem is, that only works if it's on the main page or the post date is known. Neither one is very likely.

Enter the new Search This Site feature. Look over to the right near the top of the page and you'll find it.

If you know a little music history, MusicPlasma is a lot of fun.  Enter the name of a recording artist and you'll get a graphical display that shows similar or related artists.

It could be improved as far as performance and layout, but plan to spend some time following the links it shows.

Around a week ago my friend Andy send me a link to a great Flash parody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land". You can read about the creators being threatened with a copyright lawsuit, which happened before I could even get around to posting the song here. The very brief article has a link to the song along with Guthrie's original copyright notice, which basically says to just use it.

Hey, it's for your own good. link

Thanks, Terry.

"The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest." -- Kilgore Trout

Once upon a time, before Douglas Adams did Hitchhiker's Guide in 1979, there was Kilgore Trout's Venus on the Half-Shell "for the first time without lurid covers!" (see cover photo) in 1975. The book is a great combination of humor and absurd science fiction.

Kurt Vonnegut created the fictional character Kilgore Trout, who made his first appearance in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. He was featured in Slaughterhouse-Five before becoming the central character in Breakfast of Champions and Timequake. He was mentioned in Jailbird and his son Leon narrated Galapagos. Everyone assumed that Vonnegut wrote Venus, although there was a lot of discussion about who really did it.

It's old news now, but I just found out that it was written really by Philip Jose Farmer, not Vonnegut. I read his Image of the Beast many years ago, also the Riverworld series (made into a bad movie) and a few others. It's time for a re-read.

From a letter, Tuesday, July 13, 2004
"With exactly two months and fewer than 14 legislative days before the federal assault weapons ban expires,..." The related news story is here.

Fewer than 14 work days in two months. That's a schedule I could probably live with.

"Did you invite all of these people? I thought it was just going to be the two of us." That's one sample from The Most Complete and Most Useless Collection of Pick-Up Lines. You'll probably see a lot of your old, really stupid favorite lines. And then there's this:

"Okay, so I came over here to ask you to dance, but I'm kind of concerned. I mean, we could hit it off really well, end up having a few drinks, next thing you know you're giving me your number because I'm too shy to ask for it, I finally get up the nerve to call and we take in a movie, have some dinner, I relax, you relax, we go out a few more times, get to know each other's friends, spend a lot of time together, then finally have get past this sexual tension and really develop this intense sex life that is truly incredible, decide our relationship is solid and stable, so we move in together for a while, then a few months later get married, I get a promotion, you get a promotion, we buy a bigger house. You really want kids, but I really want freedom, but we have a kid anyway, only to find that I am resentful, the sparks start to fade and to rekindle them we have two more lovely kids, but now I work too much to keep up with the bills, have no time for you, you're stressed and stop taking really good care of yourself, so to get past our slow sex life and my declining self-confidence I turn to an outside affair for sexual gratification. You find out because I'm careless and a lousy liar, you throw me out (justifiably so) and we have to explain to the kids why mommy and daddy are splitting up. That's just too sad. Think about the children. For God's sake, if you dance with me and we hit it off, let's just keep it sexual, because we both know where it's going."

There's something that's just so wrong and yet so right about that one.

Ever wondered about what's really in hair coloring, Silly Putty, Cheese Wiz, artificial snow, or self-tanners? Chemical & Engineering News presents a collection of articles that gives you a look at the chemistry behind a wide variety of everyday products.

Most don't seem very technical -- don't be afraid.

I hoped to get pictures this morning of a grand event when the the Reagan motorcade passed en route to Point Mugu. But it was surprisingly small: Only about a half dozen black vehicles in a group, not really decorated at all. (That's not including over a dozen motorcycles, mostly CHP, that were scattered ahead of the main vehicles and clearly having fun zipping around an empty freeway at about 90 mph.)

I took a couple of pictures, but they're not worth putting up here. If it wasn't for the people standing around and the traffic going the other direction being at a dead stop, you wouldn't know it was anything special.

Due to its immense scale and unique shape, The Palm, Jumeirah and The Palm, Jebel Ali are visible from space with the naked eye. If all the fill materials used to build one Palm island were placed end to end, a wall two meters high and half a metre thick could circle the world three times. PalmSales probably gives the nicest overview of this monster.

• Dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World," about 350 million cubic feet of rock, sand, and earth is being placed in the Persian Gulf in the shape of two palm trees off the coast of Dubai. - link
• The Palm-Jumeirah extends approximately 3.5 miles out into the ocean and provides for 35 miles of new beachfront — a 75% increase to Dubai's existing beachfront. On the fronds of The Palm, 1,800 luxury villas have been sold. On the trunk of The Palm there will be 2,200 condominiums (all sold out), five hotels, two marinas and a major retail centre. - link
• The Golden Mile apartments, to be housed in two waterfront buildings, went on sale this week at Arabian Travel Market 2004, the Middle East's premier travel and tourism show at prices ranging from US $250,000 for a one-bedroom, garden-view unit to $550,000 for the high-end waterfront three-bedroomed properties. 780 freehold apartments on their joint venture Golden Mile, on the Palm, Jumeirah were sold within 48 hours of them being placed on the market. - link

This location just seems a bit risky to me for vacation property. - map

It's a combination of votes and one person's opinion about a great riff or lyric or whatever, but not the whole song. I didn't agree with some selections, and given a year or so to think about it I could probably do better. None the less, there's a lot of really cool stuff listed at The 50 Coolest Song Parts.

I looked at all 50 and listened to about half to make sure I knew exactly which part they were referring to. And because I wanted to hear them again.

The makers of Pringles introduced Pringles Prints, featuring a "unique, fun design printed on every crisp". The revolutionary technology allows P&G to customize the crisps by printing words and images in a variety of colors directly on the chip. P&G is partnering with Hasbro to use Trivial Pursuit Junior trivia content. Pringles Prints will feature 2,400 fun trivia questions and answers from six different Trivial Pursuit Junior categories randomly printed on the potato crisps.

I wonder what the first movie tie-in will be?

Pykrete is sawdust reinforced ice that you can make at home. It takes a lot longer than regular ice or Blue Ice to melt. It doesn't shatter like regular ice when shot with a .243 bullet, but that doesn't help keep my food cold.

Why do I care about this stuff? If you go on 3, sometimes 4 day camping trips, you know that ice is a big problem. Dry ice keeps everything cold, but it also freezes stuff. Who want's to have a frozen beer? This may be the solution.

Here's an interesting history about its possible use as a boat in World War II.

Can you recognize an ordinary penny? It may be tougher than you think. Try it at Common Cents. It's one of the Exploratorium's Online exhibits. There are a bunch more there worth checking out. Some require Flash.

Thanks, Ron.

My friend Andy sent a song to me a week or so ago which was so big it caused my email provider to warn me that my account had passed the "high water mark". Knowing that some of my friends still use dial-up, I didn't send it on to anyone.

It turns out that it's a song by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame. You can get it at Pythonline.com. Eric says:

"Here�s a little song I wrote the other day while I was out duck hunting with a judge� It�s a new song, it�s dedicated to the FCC and if they broadcast it, it will cost a quarter of a million dollars."

It should probably be called "Fuck You, Very Much", but then nobody would be able to talk about it on the air.

I avoid Blockbuster Video for a few reasons, but the main ones are their preference for the pan-and-scan, edited for TV versions of movies. There has been a lot of discussion and denial about them supplying edited versions, but my suspicion is that it really came down to use their using the TV version. They won't carry an "unrated" version, and some DVDs come out with the Director's Cut, which makes them unrated.

Because of Blockbuster's clout, I didn't want to support something that might move movie makers to eliminate the widescreen version. But according to a Slate article, "Blockbuster Video, the country's dominant rental chain, announced that from that point on it officially preferred widescreen DVDs to pan-and-scan (also known as "full screen")."

The small video stores in my area have already been put out of business, so it's probably okay for me to rent G, PG and mild R movies there now.

I just signed this petition to count every vote this November. There are already articles posted here about this (Part 1, Part 2), so there's no point in repeating it. What follows is the letter they suggest sending after you sign the petition.

We must act now to ensure that our voting systems produce accurate and verifiable results.

Some states are planning to use machines that will not allow voters to verify their choices. This means that any flaws in the machine or software will never be caught -- and no recount will be possible.

And the head of the largest e-voting machine company -- who is a major contributor to George Bush and has promised to deliver Ohio to him -- asks that we just trust him.

Please join me by signing this call for accountability:

http://petition.democracyforamerica.com/page/p/verify/113648

The FCC was swamped with indecency complaints over a recent Oprah show about teen sexuality.  But a lot of it was instigated by Howard Stern and Jimmy Kimmel, in an attempt to show that a double standard exists about what the FCC considers obscene.

link

I recently finished rereading Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.  Classic sci-fi from 1953.  It was a bit moralistic and philosophical but one rant showed how much things have changed.  At this point in the story it is 100 years in the future, around 2050:

"Do you realize that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels?  ... Did you know that the average viewing time per person is now three hours per day?  Soon people won't be living their own lives anymore.  It will be a full time job keeping up with the various family serials on TV!"

Well, there's about 100 channels typically available now, that's 2,400 hours per day.  It's almost funny that he gave as low a number as he did when you consider that radio isn't included in my number.  I'm not sure how old the statistic is, but according to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day.  That's 30% more than what outraged Clarke.

As far as people living other's lives, there's the current addiction to reality TV.  And we're only half way to the year he was talking about.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is working on a breakthrough way of digitizing and archiving old recordings, such as wax cylinders and traditional flat records, that are too far gone for a standard stylus.

link

About half of what's quoted here was removed for brevity, but there still had to be enough left that it would make sense so it's longer than I would like.

It's worth going over the work the Butcher of Baghdad did for his Texas patrons when he was their butcher:

• 1979: Seizes power with U.S. approval; moves allegiance from Soviets to U.S. in Cold War.
• 1982: Bush-Reagan regime removes Saddam's regime from official U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
• 1984: U.S. Commerce Department issues license for export of aflatoxin to Iraq useable in biological weapons.
• 1987-88: U.S. warships destroy Iranian oil platforms in Gulf and break Iranian blockade of Iraq shipping lanes, tipping war advantage back to Saddam.
• 1990: Invades Kuwait with U.S. permission.

U.S. permission? On July 25, 1990, the dashing dictator met in Baghdad with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie. When Saddam asked Glaspie if the U.S. would object to an attack on Kuwait over the small emirate's theft of Iraqi oil, the ambassador told him, "We have no opinion.... Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America." Saddam taped her.

Glaspie, in her 1991 Congressional testimony, did not deny the authenticity of the recording, which diplomats worldwide took as a Bush Sr's okay to an Iraqi invasion.

So where is Secretary Baker today? ... Mr. Baker is a successful lawyer, founder of Baker Botts of Houston, Riyadh, Kazakhstan. Among his glittering client roster is Exxon-Mobil oil and the defense minister of Saudi Arabia. Baker's firm is protecting the Saudi royal from a lawsuit by the families of the victims of September 11 over evidence suggesting that Saudi money ended up in the pockets of the terrorists.

And Baker has just opened a new office ... at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This is a White House first: the first time a lobbyist for the oil industry will have a desk right next to the President's. Baker's job, to "restructure" Iraq's debt. How lucky for his clients in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom claims $30.7 billion due from Iraq.

Should be newsworthy that the U.S. essentially gave permission for Iraq to attack, and then used its doing so as an excuse to attack Iraq, don't you think?

The full article is an excerpt from the new edition of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

The United States ranks 10th in the industrialized world in broadband capability and "10 is 10 spots too low," Bush said at the annual convention of the American Association of Community Colleges in Minnesota.

I guess that means we should be zero instead of number one.  Or is that Bushspeak for: we should have none?

Aye!  A tricky bastard he is!

Why is it so annoying to watch someone else make a mistake?  Researches say it may be because it affects the same areas of the brain as when a person makes his or her own mistake.

Perhaps this is why I get frustrated trying to explain to someone else how to do something on the computer.  I could never figure out why I would get so frustrated.

A California assemblyman has introduced legislation banning anyone under 18 from using a tanning machine with ultraviolet rays, except under doctor's orders. - link

A Louisiana lawmaker has filed a bill that would ban people from wearing low-slung pants below the waist, thus "exposing skin or intimate clothing." - link

Don't they have anything better to do?

From FreedomToTinker -- there's no point in rewriting it, so I'll just give credit and copy:

Part 1:  The Sloganator

The first evidence of the campaign's Net-cluelessness was the Bush-Cheney poster generator that came to be called "The Sloganator". This was a web tool, on the campaign's site, that let you create a Bush-Cheney campaign poster containing the slogan of your choice. On hearing about this, any Net-savvy person knew exactly what would happen next. Opponents would discover the site and create posters with disparaging slogans. Contests would be held, to see who could make the funniest poster. And the whole episode would be commemorated with an online slide show.

Part 2:  New, Unauthorized Sloganator

I wrote previously about how the remix culture will affect political discourse.
A great example is the new, unauthorized version of the Bush/Cheney "Sloganator". The original, you may recall, was on the Bush/Cheney website. It allowed you to make a campaign poster with the candidates' names and (almost) any slogan you liked. After much hilarity at the campaign's expense, mainly in the form of parody signs with disparaging slogans, the Sloganator was retired.

Now it has been resurrected, appearing in a new, apparently unauthorized, version at http://www.bushsloganator.com. In the remix culture, it's hard to undo your mistakes, because other people will just copy them.

I now know why 0@adelphia.net was available:  It gets a spam every 5 minutes, and 99% of them have viruses.

The address was way more trouble than it was worth in easy-to-remember-ness, so it's gone.

The winning entry of the Wacky Warning Label Contest was found on a bottle of drain cleaner:  "If you do not understand, or cannot read, all directions, cautions and warnings, do not use this product."  I prefer the fishing lure with "Harmful if swallowed."

Warning labels from previous contests are available here.

I just added a new address to my adelphia.net cable modem account.  I had to talk to their tech support to do it, but that's another story of their crappy service (although the access speed is great).  It's an amazingly simple name (just a single character) and it was surprising that nobody had already taken it.

I sent mail from my other Adelphia address to it to verify that it was setup properly.  It hasn't been used for anything else.

It took less than 15 minutes to get my first spam.  While writing this I got another, which also had a virus.  Maybe that's why the address was available.

Although I live close to LA, I can't pick up KBLA which broadcasts The O'Franken Factor and other liberal fun.  No problem: they have a live internet feed using the RealOne player. 

I'm listening to it now, and it works great.

It's a timed test to put all the states names on a map.  I haven't thought about some of these places in a long time but was still surprised that I failed third grade twice before passing.  There isn't a lot of time for dropping names in the wrong places.

Thanks, Terry

It's already allowed for some other crimes, now there's a move in LA to confiscate the cars of drunk drivers when they are arrested. 

Yeah, drunk driving is a bad thing, but this should really worry everybody.  The police can make mistakes and, let's face it, they aren't all model cops.  This would give them the right to stop you for whatever reason (which they can already do) and if they don't like you and decide to arrest you for drunk driving, you lose your car.  Or whoever's car you happen to be driving.

No trial, no recourse.  They auction the cars and keep the money, which provides the same motivation that exists in the drug forfeiture laws.

I could maybe see it for repeat offenders that are way above the limit, but I've know people that were arrested for two glasses of wine with dinner.  DUIs are already a cash cow with the enormous fines, mandatory classes, etc., this is just more of the same.

The LA Times is the only one covering this so far, and their links are only good for about two weeks, but anyway it is here.  Watch this one -- it's deserving of a revolt.

Can't decide what tree to plant it the front yard?  Hate your neighbors?

SignPast offers newly made versions of old businesses, specializing in the auto and gas categories.  And they're big:  about 24 inches.

Seeing all those gas references reminds me of the brief Firesign Theatre prayer that incorporated lots of oil company names in it:

"...annointed with oil on troubled waters? oh Heavenly Grid, help us bear up thy *Standard, our *Chevron flashing bright across the *Gulf of Compromise, standing *Humble on the *Rich Field of *Mobile *American Thinking? Here in this *Shell, we call Life..."

so little writing.  I've started a lot of things for this blog that don't seem to get finished.  Usually it's a matter of more research, or clarifying, or substantiating facts.  Then when it's almost done, it's too long to post and gets put aside.  Or the computer crashes and the information from all the Explorer windows that are open gets lost.  And since there are 23 of those open now, as well as 15 emails, I better start saving some of the info before it happens again.

There's been lots of fun political stuff flying around lately.  Former Terrorism Official Dick Clarke's new book "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," has been causing a fair amount of it.  That's kind of interesting because he's not really saying much that hasn't been said before, but he is a high level source.  This is talked about in Slate's overly longly titled article "Dick Clarke Is Telling the Truth Why he's right about Bush's negligence on terrorism".

Then there's Walter.  I never thought of Cronkite as political because the was the unbiased source of news for so long.  That's certainly not what he is doing now in his columns which appear in the Denver Post.  I've only read a few, my favorites are: The scariest idea of all which talks about the absurd Bush budget numbers, Dear Senator Kerry, about it being okay to be a liberal, and U.S. unintelligence, about CIA information and Bush's use of it.

The scariest idea article reminds me that I started one about the budget.  Walter, of course, made the points much better than I would, and really should be read if you only read one of them.  Mine is long, includes lots about the national debt and how fast it is growing.  I did research, computations, and found that once the numbers are adjusted for inflation, our $6.7 million million debt is a little more than 3 times what it was in 1950.  Maybe it's not as bad as I thought it was.  Later that day the 1939 John Wayne classic Stagecoach was on.  A banker complained about the horrible state of our national debt.  I haven't been able to get back to the research since hearing that.

Keyboards, computer mice and telephone dials are more infested with microbes than toilet seats, according to a new study. link

Of course, someone has a solution to sell.

Comedian Al Franken will be the lead personality on Air America Radio, a startup venture promising a liberal alternative to powerhouse radio talk show pundits like Rush Limbaugh.  Franken and others plan to launch the network on March 31 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.

No news yet on how to tune in.

I bought this book about six months ago but just couldn't set aside the time to read it.  After all, it's by an economist.  And it depressing to read about what is and has been going on in this country for the last few years.

I finally finished it today, leaving me with a nice, fresh sense of outrage at Bush & Co.

It's mostly a collection of his N.Y. Times columns grouped by subject rather than chronologically, each area with a brief introduction.  If you're a masochist:  the entire book, other than the intros and preface, can be found online by reading the archives of his columns.  A brief, recent review (odd, since the book has been out for quite a while) is here.

This book is a must read for a wake-up to the lies that are taking place around us.  It's interesting that the same things discussed in the book are still taking place.  And the media still isn't reporting it.

He's at it again -- chipping away at privacy rights.  I'll try to make this brief:  The main article to read is from the LA Times and it's called Ashcroft Gunning for Peek at Private Medical Records.  If it's gone, email me and I'll post it here (email link is in the column to the right).  If you're already following this story, then you know what follows here, just read the Times article.

It's surprising how difficult it is to piece together the full background for this, but here goes:

• 11/6/03:  President Bush signed legislation Wednesday banning a certain type of abortion.  A federal judge immediately questioned the law's constitutionality and issued a limited temporary restraining order against it. - link
• 12/17/03:  Two abortion rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits to try to block the ban. - link
• 2/9/04 - 2/18/04:  The Department of Justice issued subpoenas to seven major hospitals records regarding the number and nature of the abortions, and several are refusing to comply. - link.
  Ashcroft says the records are needed to prove if the abortions are "medically necessary", as was stated in the lawsuits. - link
  Judge Denies Ashcroft's Request for Patient Medical Records - link
• 3/10/04:  Feds drop bid to subpoena abortion records. - link.
  Note that they are still trying to get the records, but dropping the subpoena to do it.

That first times Times article that I referenced addresses what the requests are causing in the clinics, which may be what the intended effect was to be.  The quote below (link) addresses the reason that patient records shouldn't be needed:

The government seeks these records on the possibility that it may find something therein which would affect the testimony of Dr. Hammond adversely, that is, for its potential value in impeaching his credibility as a witness.  What the government ignores in its argument is how little, if any, probative value lies within these patient records and the ready availability of information traditionally used to challenge the veracity of Dr. Hammond's scientific assertions and medical opinions.  The presence or absence of medical risks, their likelihood and nature are undoubtably described and discussed in available medical literature.  Challenges to Dr. Hammond's views would be readily available, as would the enlistment of experts supporting contrary opinions.  The search for the truth that any hearing or trial seeks to produce would hardly be infringed by finding that a physician-patient privilege exists in these circumstances.

At least there's no records of gun purchases.

The internet - you gotta love it.  Start doing one thing and two hours later you're someplace completely different.

Quite a while back I saved a link for future posting:  It was called LA Photo Gallery, but now it's called @LA.  It even got itself a www.at.la address.  It's full of links to pictures of LA grouped in various categories.  The wandering starts.  Click.  Click.  Click.

Ended up on The Ridge Route, which gives the history of the first road through the San Gabriel and Tehachapi Mountains.  Built in 1915, the road essentially connects Bakersfield to LA.  It got popular quick, and was replaced by US 99 in 1933.

Naturally, there's a website or two for it as well:  Historic US 99 Guide and Historical Tour of US 99.  I've seen pieces of US 99 (usually the part that goes straight into Pyramid Lake viewed from I-5) many times.  The first site says:

Between 1960 and 1967, I-5 replaced all of old US 99.  I-5 through the Tehachipis proved a major public works project - one of the most impressive in all of the Interstate Highway system.  As testament to this, more dirt was moved to grade for it than was used for the entire Aswan High Dam in Egypt and it is one of the few single man made objects that can be seen clearly from space.

No wonder a trip that took 2 days in 1920 only takes 2 hours now.  And no wonder a quick check of a link turned into a 2 hour side trip.

Poor a Heineken at Thuis Tap Test.  It's not in english, but you'll figure it out.

When you're done, go Smack the Penguin (thanks Ron).  I made him slide to 586.4.

Eddie Kramer was a hard-working audio engineer and producer in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  He was also an amateur photographer close to some of the biggest stars of those days such as Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa.

His website displays and sells a large number of his pictures.  His bio on the site is also an interesting read.

John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel Radio, has pulled Howard Stern off the air.  "Clear Channel drew a line in the sand today with regard to protecting our listeners from indecent content, and Howard Stern's show blew right through it," Hogan said.  "It was vulgar, offensive and insulting, not just to women and African-Americans but to anyone with a sense of common decency."

I guess Hogan, and all those employees who should have alerted him to this amazing discovery, never listened to one of their top rated shows if they are just now learning this.

On his Freedom to Tinker blog, Ed asked readers to send in the "five science and technology books you would have every student read."  The lists are coming in, but unfortunately for Ed people love to see themselves write as much as they like to hear themselves speak.  Why else would there be blogs?

Now Ed has to figure out how to tally the votes.  The problem is that some people can't just give a list of five books.  Some have to have ties for second place.  Some refer to other peoples' lists.  Some give more or fewer than five books.  Because of this it's not possible to just tally up the votes from the lists and determine the most popular.  Ed has to work harder at it, and maybe do some interpretation.

I ran into a similar problem when a group of friends did a blind champagne taste test.  They were told to rate the bottles, in four categories, from 1 to 5.  Lets ignore the problem of illegible handwriting towards the ends of the ballots.  Some people rated bottles twice.  Some people rated on a scale of 1 to 10.  Some people rated different categories on different scales.  Some just wrote "I like this one." 

We never could determine the real winner, only make a guess at it.  Tott's beat out Mumm's by a tiny amount, and did it at ¼ the price.  But the purpose of this post was for the book lists, so go read them.

TerraServer gives quick access to aerial images and topo maps.  They also used up part of my day by providing links to these other cool mapping pages:

Maptech has USGS Topo Maps, NOAA Nautical Charts, Aeronautical Charts, and Aerial Photos.  Maps can be found for cities and states, zip codes, or by latitude and longitude.

TerraFly lets you "fly" over an area.  Pick a starting point and a magnification, and then maneuver using directional controls.  Very entertaining, but it stops after just a couple of minutes due to "user load".  It's also linked to the census data:  clicking on the image brings up another page of the data for the area, including a map of the data boundaries. 

I found my house and data for an area of only 483 housing units that includes income, population, ethnicity and time travel to work, among others.  82½% in my area work within 45 minutes of home and none use public transportation.  Not too surprising when the 1999 median household income was $96,300 and 86% have two or more vehicles per household.  I don't think I'm doing my part.

A lot of sites want you to sign up with your email to gain access.  It used to be easy enough to give a fake one, but now they tend to send a link or password to your address so they can confirm that it's a real one.  Sometimes I don't mind, but not if I'm just trying to check out if their site is any good.

For 24 hours, anybody can email me at wruleati7xf@jetable.org, courtesy of Disposable Email.  When you use the service, you can pick how long the address will be valid, and then it goes away.  And you don't get weekly advertising from yet another company.

I just used it to check out a site that I don't want them sending me stuff in the future.  Got their confirmation code, and then got access.  And after 24 hours they won't be able to bother me.  Way cool!

Bummer.  Now I have to do research again.

In some alternate universe, a memorable conversation in the movie The Graduate might have gone like this:

Mr. McGuire: I just wanna say one word to you. Just one word.
Ben Braddock: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Ben Braddock: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: "Corn."

It now seems that 'corn' may replace 'plastics' in some areas of this universe as well.  Containers which look like plastic but are made from corn have been tested in Colorado and Oregon, and will hit all stores by the end of March.  Although corn containers cost 2 or 3 cents more, making them uses fewer amounts of fossil fuels and emits lower levels of greenhouse gases.  Under the right conditions they can decompose in 30 to 50 days, far different from the 1000 years it can take for a plastic beverage bottle to decompose.

A couple of new examples of the government checking into our lives in ways they are not supposed to:

Attorney General John Ashcroft insisted Thursday that doctor-patient privacy is not threatened by a government attempt to subpoena medical records in a lawsuit over the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.  At stake are records documenting certain late-term abortions performed by doctors who have joined in a legal challenge of the disputed ban.

The subpoenas seemed to be a tactic of intimidation comparable to a subpoena issued recently in a federal grand jury probe ordering Drake University to turn over names of certain anti-war activists.

And this is without the help of the Patriot Act.