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Main page August 31, 2007Walter Mossberg, Mark Cuban coming to R.I. for innovation conference in October; Mp3s: Sinatra; No more 'Roanne from...'Providence Geeks reports (BIF-3 Conference to Feature Alpha Geeks; Five 50% off “Scholarships” available for Prov Geeks), October 10th – 11th in Downtown Providence, the Business Innovation Factory is holding its third annual conference – the BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Summit. They’ve really outdone themselves this year. Among the event’s amazing collection of “Storytellers,” there are some major Alpha Geeks, including:Mossberg, the dean of tech journalists, is a West Warwick native, so he'll be coming home.
Alas, the cost is $1,000, so even half-price is still too much for those who don't routinely write these things off. If you can swing it, details about the "scholarships" are at the link. Maybe we can watch the fun later on YouTube.
The performance itself is less than sterling with Sinatra appearing far too casual for comfort. Perhaps he was unfamiliar with the Asian audience, or the humid weather, but he does sound tired and lacklustre. Nevertheless, a rare recording of 20 live Sinatra tunes is nothing to sneeze at.
But Lynn Arditi reports today (Sleep Concepts, formerly Off-Track Bedding, turns off the lights) that the firm that bought the company from Thomas and Roanne Barron in May has closed its stores and "filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors in federal bankruptcy court in Providence." Losing Choo-Choo Vine of Railroad Salvage was the first blow. Now Roanne... Posted by Sheila Lennon August 30, 2007Perfect fried clam? Forbidden colors; Japanese Internet rocks; Idaho paper blankets Larry Craig; Patriots: 7:30 p.m.
In a ’64 T-Bird, Chasing a Date With a Clam Really nice NYT story -- a Swansea-born author searches New England for the perfect, sweet, plump fried clams of his youth. Unfortunately, he found disappointment in Point Judith. Clam nirvana turned out to be Lenny’s Indian Head Inn in Branford, Conn. Interesting: It was an offhand comment, though, that gave me the final piece of the puzzle: darker-fried clams, she said, have a nuttier taste, while the lighter version lets the clam flavor predominate. Bingo. “I like to please my customers,” she added. “Some like them big, small, lightly fried, dark — we give them what they want.” Funny, the concept of requesting anything special at a clam shack’s takeout window had eluded me for 40 years. Me, too. Might have to go on my own clam hunt this Labor Day weekend...
Color theorists and designers in fashion or computer graphics have coined phrases based around what colors shouldn’t go together. A recent forum post, Red and Green Should Not Be Seen? discusses two of the sayings (”Red and Green Should Not Be Seen” and “Blue and Green Should Never Be Seen Without Something in Between”), and some lovers have even responded in protest, showing how there is no ‘wrong’ in love. Here are some palettes and applications of the forbidden colors that really work.
TOKYO -- Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it. Why? Better, newer copper wire, among other things.
The editorial board has moved in three days from Sen. Craig owes Idahoans an explanation to Craig has only himself to blame for political mess to Craig must resign.
The Craig arrest and guilty plea were revealed Monday night by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, which received a tip about the arrest, according to a reporter. Popkey said he wished he had broken that piece of the story. "That was my first thought - how did they get it and not us?" Popkey said. "I understand, but it was a little deflating to see all that work and have somebody else break the story." WaPo, Howard Kurtz: For Idaho Paper And Reporter, Craig Story Posed a Moral Dilemma Warning: May be more than you want to know: Is tapping your foot really code for public sex? at Slate. It's a very slow news week if you're not deep into back-to-school stories, so the media field trip into men's public toilets is hard to avoid. The biggest annoyance in women's public toilets is wet seats, so women everywhere are boggled. This "explainer" from Slate is probably the fastest way to get up to speed and get out quickly.
Heads up: The Patriots play the N.Y. Giants tonight at 7:30, in case you'd gotten used to Friday night preseason games. It's on Fox cable, Ch. 5 and 64, and WBCN 104.1 FM. This is the last of four preseason games. The season that counts opens Sunday, Sept. 9 at 1 p.m. when the Pats play the Jets in New York on CBS. Fact checking: Andrew Greeley: A church 'scandal' that isn't: Now, as the poor battered Catholic Church tries to recover from a bushel basket of scandals, it must cope with the Mother Teresa scandal. Someone has found the poor woman's private letters in which she confessed how weak her faith and love seemed. Spread around the world by Time magazine, the letters are taken as evidence that she was not the saint we all thought she was... -- Chicago Sun-Times, August 29, 2007 Time Magazine: Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith: The book (Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light by Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk) is hardly the work of some antireligious investigative reporter who Dumpster-dived for Teresa's correspondence. Kolodiejchuk, a senior Missionaries of Charity member, is her postulator, responsible for petitioning for her sainthood and collecting the supporting materials. (Thus far she has been beatified; the next step is canonization.) The letters in the book were gathered as part of that process. The Time story is interesting. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 29, 2007Coming soon: Your photos of scenes that didn't quite happenGot a great photo with with an unfortunate element -- an old boyfriend, for instance? No problem. This technology will remove him and "fix" the background. It's called Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing. The video above shows how to create the photos you wish you had shot from the ones you actually did shoot. Photo too wide or too narrow for that space you need to fill? It will identify the least important parts of the photo and convincingly remove or expand them. A beach scene can stretch or shrink in one direction without distorting anything. The software will fill in the blanks. Much as this may enhance your personal slideshows, it's just not what the camera saw. It could alter accident scenes, add or remove people from compromising photos and wreak havoc with all sorts of photographic evidence and truth in advertising. ("How come my cabana is only two feet from the next one? I saw 20 feet of beach sand in every direction on your Web site!") Watch the video. It's very convincing. Tech Crunch reports that the co-inventor of this technology, Shai Avidan of the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, who developed this with Ariel Shamir, started work at Adobe, maker of Photoshop, in Newton, Mass., last Monday. The video was shown at the Siggraph 2007 conference in San Diego earlier this month. Dial-up warning: Dr. Shamir's fascinating site is full of images that load slowly. The pdf of their paper on the technology isn't coming up easily either. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 28, 2007Links dump: Trampy kid clothes, women priests, reusable water bottles, coffee-drink glossary, tattoo bandages, hot guitar...Links-dump day: Emptying the notebook, all flotsam, no jetsam. (You'll see.) 8 year old guitar whiz Quinn Sullivan and Buddy Guy. YouTube. Moonk: Show photos, videos and MP3's on your blog, MySpace, Facebook, eBay, Web or whatever page... Technophilia: Where the Web Archives Are - Lifehacker Reusable water bottles you'll actually want to use - Slate Human Brain Cloud. "Massively multiplayer word-association game." Measuring Soft Drinks' Jolt -- Caffeine contents. Science News Tattoo Bandages. Perpetual Kid. Lolita's Closet: Unbearably trampy back-to-school clothes. Slate Catholic Women Press Their Fitness for Priesthood -- Women's E-News. How to Get a Job on Craigslist. Guy Kawasaki. Parents Begin Potty Training at Birth. Thought Audio: Free quality MP3 classic literary works for download Protect Your Produce -- Real Simple SPECIAL: Web Editors Reveal Online Flops or Failures. E&P. So what does a bull in a china shop really do? Mythbusters on YouTube. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 27, 2007Watch tomorrow's pre-dawn lunar eclipse online
Sunrise at 5:08 a.m. will end visibility of Tuesday morning's eclipse of the moon about a half-hour after it gets underway here on the East coast, but you can watch it all on the Web live here at the Eclipse Webcast. From Space.com (Eclipse Weather: Who Will See The Moon Disappear Tuesday Morning): A team from the University of North Dakota (UND) will travel to Las Vegas to provide the world with a live webcast of the event. Posted by Sheila Lennon 'I'm Not There': movie trailer for the Dylan biopicI lost a long post just before saving it when my system crashed with 89 Firefox tabs open. I know better. But one page at The Daily Mail kept doing it again and again. I won't point you there. This is the trailer for the Dylan biopic I'm Not There, a title that is literally true: Six actors play Dylan -- four men, one woman and a 13-year-old boy -- but Dylan is not in it The many sides of Dylan. Guardian (U.K.): There is nothing normal about the movie, which delves into the fascinating life of the singer-songwriter and promises to be one of the strangest films of the decade.Photos From the Set at Rolling Stone. Dylan movie to open like a rolling premiere. In November, at just four theaters at first. NYT. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 26, 2007Update: Olbermann does 'Countdown' on NBC11:12 p.m. Doesn't Keith know any smart women willing to pull a Sunday shift? Somehow, the show got stupider when it went to the network. It made me wish he'd pull feisty veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas out of the hat for some plain speaking and badly needed gravitas. I was recording the game, and people dropped in, and somehow the recording stopped, so I missed Keith's commentary on Michael Vick and caught only the end of the half-time patter. It's preseason for me, too... Later: KO on NBC: Let's play softball. 9:31 a.m. NBC calling up "Countdown" for Sunday. Reuters. Keith Olbermann will do a special edition of Countdown, his MSNBC mix of news, humor and political commentary, at 7 p.m. tonight on NBC before Sunday Night Football. He will have a key role with Costas and Collinsworth, Tiki Barber and Jerome Bettis on this season's "SNF" pregame show. Sunday's game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers doesn't have too much of a pregame, but Olbermann will deliver a commentary during halftime. The topic? Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who this week said he will plead guilty to dogfighting and gambling charges. The lead of this story, which I skipped, was all about Keith trying to play down what looks like a tryout against 60 Minutes. Countdown is an edgy TV newsblog that combines the day's top stories, YouTube videos and Edward R. Murrow-style commentaries. His beat is those who would thwart democracy in America, especially President Bush and Fox News, whose bias he sees embodied in his timeslot rival Bill O'Reilly. Some say it's folly to have the Progressive blogger lead into the famously conservative NFL production, but football fans come from all sides. Olbermann's "smart news" should get viewers fired up, one way or the other, for the big game that follows -- especially since former sportscaster Olbermann will do highlights on that show, too. olbermann.org -- Archives his clips and other output. Keith Olbermann Org (KO.O.) -- Forums. Olbermann Watch -- Conservative lividity Posted by Sheila Lennon August 25, 2007Tarot cards from a concentration camp
Tarot Cards from Allach Concentration Camp, scanned and exhibited by the The Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, are the work of ...After the war, Kobe did no more work as far as is known about his camp experiences. He was, however, a major Slovenian architect. One of his major projects was the restoration of the Ljubljana Castle. ...
This was the actual liberation of Allach, a Dachau sub-camp by the 42nd Rainbow Div. on April 30, 1945. There's a description of the event at that link. Here's another photo of Kobe, also known in Slovenia as Borisa Kobeta. He seems also to have painted a portrait of The Writer Janez Trdina in 1969, which is in the Dolenjska Museum collection. Slovenia is east of Italy, south of Austria, north of Croatia, and shares a small border on its northeast corner with Hungary. Here's a map, one in a nice collection of maps of Europe at the University of Texas. Here's the link to all the cards again... You can keep clicking through to very high-rez images. The downloadable image of the XXI card is 1885 by 2873 pixels, and 2.5 mb. via boingboing via whistlinginthedark.com Posted by Sheila Lennon Knitted food
This cheeseburger is made of yarn. Go ahead, click it to see it larger.
More photos from the book here at this Food Knit post at Fleegle's Blog. The photo at the top of this item came from there. There's a lot of this out there, a cult of simulations. Glancing around, it's apparent that smaller needles work better than large for items that are normally smooth. There are some patterns here, but the results are often coarse. Via Food Knit at the L.A. Times's Daily Dish blog. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 24, 2007Ken Lyon in Matunuck; '70s mp3s; How Google works; Pats v. Carolina at 8 on CBS; Brady baby details
After a triumphant reunion in April at Woonsocket's Stadium Theater, Ken Lyon and Tombstone take it to the beach Saturday night, playing the Ocean Mist in Matunuck. It's a DVD release party, offering a limited edition, double-DVD set documenting that concert, "An Evening with Ken Lyon: A Musical Retrospective." The video spans nearly the entire concert and includes guest spots by musicians from every phase of the Rhode Island bluesman's career including the Celtic Pendragon, The Shoe Fly Orchestra, and original Tombstone members Mark Taber on keyboards and Brenda Mosher Bennett on vocals. In addition to a special appearance by drummer Michael Quinn after years off stage, this "Class of 2007" concert will include: Rick Bellaire: Guitar, percussion (FolksTogether) They sold out their 17-song retrospective CD, "The Best of Ken Lyon Volume 1," but did another pressing, so you can get that now, too. I wrote a lot about Ken Lyon and Tombstone before and after the April gig -- with tunes, photos and a bit of video. My only complaint was that it's hard to dance in a theater seat, so here's a chance to boogie on the sand, if a summer Saturday night overlooking the ocean with a legend sounds like a memory you'd like to make. Gary Gramolini's group, Gary Guitar & The Grinders, will open. Show starts around 9 p.m. Free mp3s: At BigO this week,'70s tunes: Van Morrison, Mechanical Bliss (link fixed) and Neil Young, Chrome Dreams Noteworthy: How Google Works at Portfolio. Holding a Program in Ones Head by Paul Graham. It's about letting any complex idea gestate, actually. Fearing the Nazis again. Los Angeles Times documents reruns of hell for old Holocaust survivors whose senile dementia includes trips back to their trauma, in living color. The Patriots play the Carolina Panthers at 8 p.m. on CBS. No photos of the Brady baby yet, but two of the very pregnant Bridget Moynahan, well before Wednesday's Caesarean. In Touch reports that the baby weighed 7 lbs., 14 oz.. The Herald says Jonathan has beaten out William as the likely name for the neonate. (Kraft over Belichick?) Posted by Sheila Lennon August 23, 2007Hurricane narrowly targeted man-made cruise port and its mock Mayan village
Doc's history includes a trip with his sister, the last Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise, in October 2005. His photos of Majahual, and links to before and after photos and reports are in Remembering Majahual. Since he grabbed the hard-news hurricane handoff, I get to be the potentially interested reader, new to the area now that it's gone. And what a weird area it is. Into the Jungle is an alt-travel writer's funny and jaundiced take on Costa Maya last year. Author Rick Archer documents the annual cruises of members of SSQQ Dance Studio in Houston, which boasts "Magic at creating Romances." Rick owns it, and spun off a travel business to do Love Boat-style cruises. It's one long Web page, slow to load because of dozens of photos of Belize, Costa Maya and Cozumel, but worth the wait. You might scroll down the page or use Ctrl-F to find "COLORFUL COSTA MAYA" and read on. A sample:
As you can see, Costa Maya is a bizarre little Indian village right in the middle of NOWHERE. This is his second trip, back after a honeymoon cruise two years before to the Caymans ended up here instead. As he did some research before returning, he confronted a Glowing Travel Story: Whereas my mediocre writing painted the picture of a muddy little village with stumpy trees stuck in the middle of nowhere, this writer came up with a flowery description of Costa Maya that made me wonder how I missed all that stuff.
(Note: If you have followed this story closely, Majahual is virtually inaccessible by plane or car. There is an airport that isn't used and a road full of potholes. Only cruise ships can get it to it! The trees are short because hurricanes down them all every few years, as Dean has once more. Doc quotes Cruise Ship Report, ... Cesar Lizarraga, director of sales and marketing for Costa Maya, said about half the port’s infrastructure — including the cruise ship pier, which was able to accommodate three ships — was damaged by the mammoth storm.
You can read all of Rick Archer's astonishment at Costa Maya and see more of Gary Davidson's photos -- many of Americans being silly -- from this trip at this link. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 22, 2007Forget your PIN often? 25 weird animals; Eating tomatoes; Roots radio; Not spam, bacnAfter the storm...
Put a number in your mobile (phone) under the name J Cash - the last four numbers being your new pin... My parents are musicians, but a bit challenged on the memory front. So they remember PINs by associating the numbers 1-9 with a musical scale (e.g. 1=C, 2=D... a little bit beyond an octave), then they memorise the 4-note phrase that their PIN produces. So, for example, 1445 sounds like 'Away in a...' of the first line of 'Away in a Manger.' Works for them, but then they're quite happy to sing Away in a Manger at ATMs. I thought everyone used 1234?I used my mother's birthday, but now that she's no longer alive, it's not reinforced by "you must not forget this date" any more. It fled my brain as my fingers hovered over a keypad last week. The policymakers who want people never to retire so they won't drain Social Security have not only not considered the chaos of daily new password requests, they have no idea how viral it could be to have everybody asking, "What am I doing here?"
I'm not going for merely the cheap "Aw..." of Cats in Boxes. I see archetypes. Here's the Blobfish:
Psychrolutes marcidus To remain buoyant, the flesh of the blobfish is primarily a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending energy on swimming. The relative lack of muscle is not a disadvantage as it primarily swallows edible matter that floats by in front it. ... More info
Low-hanging fruit: The New York Times food section does tomatoes today, and a recipe for Gazpacho With Watermelon and Avocado caught my eye. Cool, easy, sloppier at my house than the severe food styling in the photo above. Reading the instructions, I realize that the avocado is added later as chunks on top, and wonder if color theory ruled here. Red and pale yellow-green make brown, which might look more like naked chili and less startlingly red. I'm tempted to puree it all together, for the sake of good taste. Also, what to do with green tomatoes: Green Tomato and Lemon Marmalade. Save this for the night before the first hard frost.
The term was allegedly coined at PodCamp Pittsburgh. Lack of vowels duly noted. Blame it on the dearth of unclaimed, well-spelled domain names. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 21, 2007Category 5 hurricane hits hummingbirds' winter home, heads for Mexican oil fields
Here's a great locator map of the area.
Dean is now the ninth most powerful storm on record, the first hurricane since Andrew in 1992 to make landfall in the Western Hemisphere as a category 5 storm. Over land overnight, it has weakened to a category 3 with winds of 125 mph. Next stop: Mexican oil fields. The Oil Drum is all over it.
NOAA: "DEAN MADE LANDFALL ON THE EAST COAST OF THE YUCATAN PENINSULA NEAR THE CRUISE SHIP PORT OF COSTA MAYA AROUND 0830 UTC...AND THE EYE IS NOW JUST INLAND. OBSERVATIONS FROM AN AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTER PLANE INDICATE THAT THE HURRICANE WAS INTENSIFYING RIGHT UP TO LANDFALL." That was around 4:30 a.m. EDT just north of Chetumal, the capital of Quintana Roo, between Cancun to the north and Belize to the south. Costa Maya is home to the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, near the Mayan Ruins of Tulum.
Laura's Birding Blog: Dean looks bad for humans and hummingbirds: The Yucatan is... where virtually all our Ruby-throated Hummingbirds spend the winter. Absurdly related: Blogger Laura Erickson's For the Birds site includes The Owls of Harry Potter, with a photo of her as "Professor McGonagowl." Posted by Sheila Lennon Carved books carved books Brian Dettmer 1 2 3 photo found here More Odds and Ends After all the words, fears, wind and water links, this is simple. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 20, 2007Hurricane strengthens as it nears Ambergris Caye and Yucatan
Jamaica was grazed by Hurricane Dean, and things there seem alright for most. Links in the previous post will help you find out how the people and places you may know there fared. Lou Josephs is taking the storm handoff to the Caymans and beyond. He's on top of the radio there and more. At 11 p.m., NOAA reports, MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 160 MPH...260 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. DEAN IS A POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE Here's the Caribbean Satellite map view, and a map of the western Caribbean to help locate the places you read and hear about.. The Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico is just above Belize. (maps) I just got to Love FM in Belize, which expects Hurricane Dean tomorrow morning. The hosts are asking listeners to call in and paint a portrait of what they're seeing, which has people driving around and calling in. Interesting talk radio, at the moment. The storm is traveling, and each new group readies for it braces through it, and cleans up later. This time, radio is taking all of us there, too. One storm is more than enough for me, and I have never traveled west of Jamaica in the tropics. I don't know these next places. If you know them and want to track along, here are some places to start: Ambergris Caye & Belize Message Board Ambergris Caye Emergency Response Friends & Family Tracker Yucatan Blogs at MexOnline. Stay safe. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 19, 2007Reporting a hurricane: live Jamaican radio; China forbids Tibetan monks from reincarnating; Murals of Belfast; Mp3s: BS&T '77
AP / Andres Leighton 11:15 p.m. Going to bed. Power is deliberately off now in most of Jamaica. Reports are coming in from all over the island -- trees down and blocking roads, roofs gone, some houses destroyed, some phone service out. Amazing job by Althea Morrison of Power 106-FM and the Gleaner's citizen correspondents. Respect. Good night. 10:14 p.m. Live Jamaican radio - Power 106-FM in Kingston is still broadcasting.. How? The station must have a generator. I asked Lou Jacobs to explain: How they do that: "The blogsphere wonders how in the hell do you get a radio signal out of an island that's getting blasted by a 145 mph hurricane? Easy you use a CDN, that's correct a Content Delivery Network...." He told me in email the signal is going out via fiber under the ocean. He's getting a streamguys server in Ashburn, Virginia; I did a traceroute, too, to the actual URL Winamp is using, and I'm getting 16 hops to Chicago. The signal is distributed, so not everybody's banging on the same server. 9:12 p.m. Hurricane links and reports from those who can post at Negril Message Board at Negril.com, on the west end ofJamaica, where it is raining now. Earlier hurricanes shortened the beach there considerably. One post says Friends of Jamaica is accepting donations via PayPal. 7:40 p.m. Treasure Beach, on the south side of Jamaica: News: Phone communications seem to be down. Text messages from the area say there are high winds and a very black sky. posted: 08-19-2007 06-11-49 Radio is still up, playing the Jamaican national anthem and reporting it is pitch black in Kingston, with vicious winds. Ronald Jackson, director general of the Office of Preparedness and Emergency Management, reports they expect 300,000 Jamaicans to need help; 4,500 people in shelters, extensive damage to the parish of St. Thomas, at the eastern end of the island. People are calling in from all over the island saying they're fine, one despite a butternut tree having fallen nearby. It's very local, very live, very real. Jamaicans.com has a Jamaica - Hurricane Dean Post bulletin board thread. Pinned to the top: Here is a list of organizations that will provide aid and/or drop off points for anyone seeking to help Jamaica if Storm/Hurricane causes major damage...
I've switched to the Caribbean Satellite view, since the visible one is dark now. Jamaica is the small island Florida points to, below Cuba. The storm passed south of Haiti and Dominican Republic but has since strengthened. These links will open the the Caribbean Satellite viewlatest satellite view or storm track view. This link goes to the latest text advisory on the storm's track. It's expected to hit with high winds and heavy rains leading to flooding early this afternoon and track along the south coast of Jamaica all afternoon.
It's hyperlocal -- reports from one area, requests from another. 4:18: Electricity is being shut down to the areas of the island most exposed to the storm to prevent damage to the power system and to communities as power lines come down. Radio vet Lou Josephs emails that "it's the only station you don't have to pay money for to hear," so people can still catch its news with portable radios. Note -- 3 p.m. Radio Jamaica says
When I first connected, Jimmy Cliff was singing, "Many Rivers to Cross." That was followed by ads and a DJ taking calls and reading encouraging emails from around the world, and a query as to whether teacher's college orientation was still on for tomorrow. (Doubtful.) (Later, the college called in to tell her it's postponed.) Now I'm listening to tips (dry ice, water, mosquito boom after storm), latest forecasts, shelter locations and a recorded message suspending political campaigning. The weather is still good -- very calm. The storm track has moved a bit south of the island, and the announcer thinks it won't be quite the "slam dunk" expected earlier. A caller just asked, "Which direction is it coming from, Negril or Morant Point?" (the west or the east). It's approaching Marant Point, from the east. Blogs for now and later: -- Go-Jamaica Hurricane Dean Watch blog. -- Montego Bay Day by Day Photos of preparations in MoBay -- vanishing bread, taping windows. Yesterday, I think most of us who do not have slab roofs are worrying ourselves slowly into a state of panic that they might blow off, while those who live in flat, flood prone areas are already packing in a state of frenzy to get the heck out of there! Well it seems to be getting dark now, i’m sorta anxious for the hurricane to do it’s damage and leave us alone, this is probably my last post until after the hurricane i’m considering packing my computer up and moving it downstairs in a room where there’s no windows.anyhow, i’ll have pics for everyone to show the damage that has been done; before and after the hurricane. --Stunner's Afflictions, Kingston: You may visit this blog later in the night as I may be able to post a short update on how Dean is affecting the island. I will be busy at work, but I'll try to give a quick updates for as long as the internet connection stay up. -- Jamaican Lifestyle. While the power lasts... -- The webcam atop the Gleaner building in Kingston is unfortunately not live. It's showing archived images. Photos tagged hurricanedean at Flickr. Overview: Hurricane Dean heads for Jamaica after swiping Dominican Republic. Slapping forehead: Jeneane Sessum offered overlapping Jamaica links yesterday. I could have pointed you there, added a bit to it, and left for the movies. If I had realized I was going to spin this out, I would have started a new item. I planned only to link to the visible satellite view, but it grew. Buddha laughs: By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering. So... the eternal spirit of the Dalai Lama, which occupies different mortal bodies through time, will by stymied by Chinese regulations? This sounds a lot like the biblical story of Herod ordering all children under 2 killed so he could eliminate the King of the Jews the Magi told him had been born. Welcome addition: Web Urbanist bills itself as "Collective Bloggings about Urban Cultures and Alternative Arts," and is stylish in the best sense, full of interesting photos such as Urban Abandonments: 7 Deserted Wonders of the (Post)Modern World, and Beyond The Troubles: Murals of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Not all of those are about the troubles:
Posted by Sheila Lennon August 17, 2007Jazz drummer Max Roach dies at 83: Listen; Patriots-Titans, 8 p.m. on Fox and 5
Jazz drummer Max Roach performs during the the Newport Jazz Festival in New York, June 26, 1978. Max Roach, a Founder of Modern Jazz, Dies at 83 is an informed musical obit at Drummerworld with five over-the-shoulder videos of the master drummer drumming. ...drummer Max Roach, who left his rhythmic stamp on so much post-war jazz, passed on today. Over a career that stretched some 60-plus years, from young bebop turk to universally respected elder statesmen, political firebrand and restless intellectual, Roach recorded numerous classic dates as a leader, worked as a sideman with enough giants to fill up a jazz textbook, and managed to swing with a heartstopping funkiness or a fingertip-tender caress whatever the mood of the date he was playing on or the musicians he found himself playing with. Here are some music blogs mourning to his music. All offer tunes. Listen: Audiversity: Max Roach R.I.P.: Here is a proper summation of his unbelievable 70 years of jazz drumming, and here is a comprehensive discography of his work. Locust St.: Max Roach, 1924-2007 Roach's stature is huge in our house. Joe named one of our cats Max after this man. (The other is Miles.)
Just the enthusiasm of the hometime crowd should make this lesss of a snooze than last week's loss to Tampa Bay. I hope the announcers are better. Last week, when they should have been telling us who that Patriot was who ran downfield out of bounds and drew the 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty -- his dreads covered the name on his jersey -- they were droning on with patter they'd brought with them. I ended up on the Patriots site looking at the roster to find out that #41 was rookie Larry Anam out of Boston College. No game-day recipe today. It's Friday night, we're beat and not cooking. We'll be doing chicken salad, fruit and cheese and a plastic tub of smoked mussels. All healthy and cool, unless my brother brings those killer cheddar Kettle chips again. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 16, 2007Update: All the stories in 'American Stories from the Sixties'
I. Vietnam I'm honored to be among them. There's a wonderful comment posted tonight by one of the Rhode Islanders I interviewed for the Woodstock series back in 1989. Posted by Sheila Lennon Another Woodstock anniversary: My '89 story lives on in a college textbook and on the Web
On this 38th anniversary of Woodstock, my 1989 series, based on interviews with 50 Rhode Islanders who were at that '69 festival with me, is now part of a college textbook. It's one of I wrote here last year how this all came about.
Other authors, including co-editors Tim Koster and Karen Manners Smith, write of their experiences in Vietnam, draft resistance, Kent State, psychedelics, feminism, civil rights, communes, a cult, Richard Nixon's campaign, undercover in the DEA, alongside Cesar Chavez, as a Red Cross "Donut Dollie" and more.
Karen Smith and Tim Koster made a point of traveling to meet the authors, and when she came to Providence last summer, I asked, "What's everybody else doing now?" Contributors were asked to write a synopsis of our lives since then, and these little bios at the back of the book are compelling.
Posted by Sheila Lennon August 15, 2007Beware the black-market olive oil; Rolling Stone on John Edwards; Movable Type 4.0 released
On August 10, 1991, a rusty tanker called the Mazal II docked at the industrial port of Ordu, in Turkey, and pumped twenty-two hundred tons of hazelnut oil into its hold. The ship then embarked on a meandering voyage through the Mediterranean and the North Sea. By September 21st, when the Mazal II reached Barletta, a port in Puglia, in southern Italy, its cargo had become, on the ship’s official documents, Greek olive oil. It slipped through customs, possibly with the connivance of an official, was piped into tanker trucks, and was delivered to the refinery of Riolio, an Italian olive-oil producer based in Barletta. There it was sold—in some instances blended with real olive oil—to Riolio customers. Is nothing sacred? And no, I don't think there's a home test for ringers in your olive oil.
The Real Liberal: John Edwards is Third in the Polls, But Don't Count Him Out. Rolling Stone: Flying below the radar, the former vice-presidential candidate is pulling off a feat that Democratic consultants have long considered impossible: staking out the most progressive platform among the viable candidates while preserving an aura of electability. In head-to-head polling against the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, Clinton and Obama have managed to post only modest leads. Edwards, by contrast, not only bests every Republican candidate in the race, he trounces them -- by an average of twelve points. Elizabeth Edwards would be a more than interesting First Lady. It is indeed historic that a woman and a black man are the early frontrunners in the polls that don't count but, as I've said before, I do not underestimate the private sexism and racism of the electorate. Feel free to disagree, but my mailman was chortling as he sang to my husband, "I'm Hillary the Eighth I am" (to the old Herman's Hermits tune). Makes me think there's a good chance a white man will again win the presidency in 2008. Whichever white Republican man runs, the surface debate might be about a new path after the last 8 lost years, but the nasty subliminal message would be, "Not black, not Hillary" were either Obama or Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. To a large chunk of the electorate, that would be reason enough to hold the nose and vote for Mitt or Rudy or Fred. I would rather see Hillary Clinton move from First Lady to Senator then perhaps to Vice President. If that works out well, the voters might enthusiastically support her for the top job in 2012. Obama is young, and has time yet to reinterpret the role of Martin Luther King in a new century. I wish it weren't true, but I think America is still not ready for a woman or a black to be its leader and public face in the world. We're too divided, too angry, for that much in-your-face change. Not my mailman: The Head Counselor finally takes a hike. Good riddance: Garrison Keillor. If you'd rather pause for the Site Pass at Salon, there's it's headlined, No wonder they called him Turd Blossom. George Lakoff: No Center, No Centrists: "There is no left to right linear spectrum in the American political life. There are two systems of values and modes of thought -- call them progressive and conservative (or nurturant and strict...)." To a point. The founders foresaw and encouraged our differences. The solution has been to focus on our shared self-interest, not our parochial divisions. The last time that became impossible, there was civil war.
Posted by Sheila Lennon August 14, 2007How Al Jazeera came to Vt.; Hobbit houses; Religion writer loses faith; Digicam tips; Why bugs aren't hugeAdding Al Jazeera: How the Qatar-based news channel made its way onto the airwaves of Burlington, Vermont, at American Journalism Review. Related: Al-Jazeera offers news diversity to US, recently at FT.com .
Dug into a hillside in a secluded part of Wales, Hobbit homes, or rather low impact woodland homes, are springing up all over the place thanks to the Lammas Project. This project is the first of its kind and aims to demonstrate the viability of low impact living as a settlement model. The development of an eco-village is set to take place in 2008 in Pembrokeshire, as this is one of the only county’s in the UK (apart from Milton Keynes) to have a planning policy for low impact Development...
Why Bugs Are Not Huge at LiveScience. Aka, why those nightmares can't come true. The reason has to do with a bottleneck that occurs in insects' air pipes as they become humongous, new research shows. In the Paleozoic Era, insects were able to overcome the bottleneck due to a high-oxygen atmosphere. More details, and a lovely bug X-ray, at the link. Slacker Cats was disappointing. Great idea, not funny. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 13, 2007Karl Rove to quit; 'Slacker Cats' on TV tonight; Stephen King on Harry Potter; Iraq war film: 'No End in Sight'
Karl Rove to Resign Karl Rove, President Bush's longtime political adviser, is resigning as White House deputy chief of staff effective Aug. 31, and returning to Texas, he said in an interview with Paul Gigot, editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. (See related commentary.) At left and right strongholds Democratic Underground and Free Republic, respectively, nobody believes the "more time with my family" chestnut. Positioning himself for the 2008 candidate? Indictment coming? Stay tuned... (Scandal?) Cat TV: We'll be there, with our own pair of slackers. Master on master: Stephen King: The last word on Harry Potter . An affectionate rave for "Jo Rowling" -- even his quibble about there being a spell for every tight spot is gentle: "(in a way, the Potter books are The Joy of Magic rather than The Joy of Cooking)." And he leaves us with a knock on the adult market, and a few ways to feed the little minds opened by Harry: ...One last thing: The bighead academics seem to think that Harry's magic will not be strong enough to make a generation of nonreaders (especially the male half) into bookworms...but they wouldn't be the first to underestimate Harry's magic; just look at what happened to Lord Voldemort. And, of course, the bigheads would never have credited Harry's influence in the first place, if the evidence hadn't come in the form of best-seller lists. A literary hero as big as the Beatles? ''Never happen!'' the bigheads would have cried. ''The traditional novel is as dead as Jacob Marley! Ask anyone who knows! Ask us, in other words!'' The search you rode in on: I'm seeing this in my referrer logs: Google Search: can a frozen roast go in a crockpot? Yes -- here's the recipe. This shows up every holiday weekend and some Patriots games, as folks find out the party is at their house. (Here in Rhode Island, we won't give up that summer holiday once called V-J Day, now just Victory Day. It's a beach-and-barbecue Monday here.) I'm also seeing this, for which I have no explanation: Google Search: nude gardening pictures Those aren't here. Next window, please. Elegy: No End in Sight It's opening Aug. 24 at the Avon. Synopsis and review links at Metacritic. An interview with the filmmaker, Charles Ferguson, at CNet: How filmmaking is like launching a start-up. Ferguson, who holds a PhD in political science from MIT, sold his HTML editor FrontPage to Microsoft for $133 million in 1996. Hat tip to Tom Matrullo for the pointer. A first? The most-emailed story on projo.com this morning was a wedding announcement. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 12, 2007Newport Jazz Festival: A rave from Rick, photos from the Web and a plea for shade
NEWPORT — As Jeff “Tain” Watts, the drummer of The Branford Marsalis Quartet, erupted into a solo during “Jack Baker,” the opening song of the group’s closing set at yesterday’s JVC Jazz Festival-Newport, bassist Eric Revis shouted his encouragement.
(Update: Rick has posted Notes from Newport, "Stuff I didn't have room for" in the newspaper's news hole.) Behind the music, there's the historical festival, persisting through highs and lows in the popular taste for jazz. Rick reports, Helped by great weather, the festival drew a crowd announced at 6,500, and the good turnout for serious jazz did festival impresario George Wein’s heart good.
Amazingly, to me, Rick's reviews are the only ones I see in Google News. Whether this reflects shrinking arts staffs at news organizations or a low point for jazz or just enjoying it without having to rassle deadlines and connectivity, write it next week... who knows? Blog search engine Technorati found a bit more: Tradition gets an update at Newport Folk Festival is a long piece posted Saturday at Festival Roots Preview, by Dan Ruby, who's attending his first Newport Jazz Festival. At Melody Trip, Newport Jazz Fest promises, This first-timer will be reviewing Sunday's lineup of the Newport Jazz Fest at the historic Fort Adams St Park So we'll check back there later. Do take a look at rj3.cowboy's fine photoset from yesterday's concerts at Flickr, which includes the lead photo at the top of this post, which I chose because it's what Rick's writing leads with, too. Among us all, it's possible to show it and tell it.
Journal Photo / Ruben W. Perez Saturday afternoon at the Newport Jazz Festival at Fort Adams. The couple in the foreground are Henrissa Nazareth and Ashwin Kamble of New York City, On the Web, I found an album of 77 photos of the 50th anniversary Festival in 2004, if you want to get a feel for the scene. Just visible in the distance is the second, non-paying audience of boaters in craft of all sizes bobbing, jostling and bumping bumpers just offshore.
The festival continues today with B.B. King and Al Green headlining, but more traditional jazz will also fill the three stages. Update: Completing the set: Rick's review of Sunday's sets, B.B. King, Al Green close festival with style. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 10, 2007Weekend mp3s: Unreleased Bob Marley; A wooden Mac; Ring Lardner's script for M*A*S*H
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Wounded Lion Sessions 1979 Wounded Lion is an unreleased track that disses this system threatening a revolution but because of the reference to "a wounded lion in the jungle" is also about Marley's sense of powerlessness. Some suggest he was aware of his mortality that the cancer he had was always on his mind. (He died May 11, 1981 at 36.) The music has a gospel flavor with a nice chorus of "a revolution now for sure". The 20-minute length makes it a delicious thick slice of hypnotic skank. The vocals can be heard but Marley is a little distance away from the mic and his voice is disembodied. This is more about feel than hardcoded ideas. Includes You Talk Too Much and three versions of Babylon System. Also, The Long Haul: Santana, Steve Miller Band, Chicago, Beacon Theater, NYC 1975. The Santana is available now, Miller and Chicago to come Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Posted by Sheila Lennon August 9, 2007Rick Massimo blogs live from the Warped TourProjo music writer Rick Massimo is live-blogging the Warped Tour at Tweeter (Great Woods, to you veterans) in Mansfield, Mass. at our new projo music blog. Rick already has a voice, so what's making this special is how to hear 97 bands on 10 stages and run off to the press tent to write about it. There's been a whole lot of double-kick-drum, howling, cookie-monster-vocals metal, and a lot of Dashboard Confessional-style pop-punk, so it's been real refreshing to hear the diversions, such as Flogging Molly's Irish-laden punk rock - sort of a turbo-Pogues, complete with mandolin, fiddle, accordion; and ska from several groups such as The Fabulous Rudies and (especially) the old-school second wave of The Toasters.He's reviewing it for the paper on deadline to boot, which may make Rick the hardest working man in music reporting today. In advance, knowing the logistics, he asked me to ask you this: What did I miss? You can comment here, in that anonymous survey at the link or, to welcome him to the blogosphere, on his posts at the music blog, especially if you want to continue the conversation. I'm adding links to his Warped Tour posts so you can hear the bands he heard that he chose to single out. By now, that's between bites of grilled eggplant and shrimp on my back porch. He calls me when he posts a new item. This one doesn't sound like a lot of fun to report. It's no fun to be covering something so big that you could miss what history says mattered that day. Posted by Sheila Lennon Game Day recipe for Friday night's Pats game: GazpachoMusician Rick Bellaire sends along this recipe, promising you'll like it. The Patriots play RICK BELLAIRE'S GAZPACHO RECIPE
He wound up having seconds. INGREDIENTS
6 dinner portions, 12 appetizer portions Posted by Sheila Lennon August 8, 2007Who brought the cat?It was 82 degrees at 11 p.m. here in Providence. Who brought the cat? is about all I'm up to. Posted by Sheila Lennon New William Gibson: 'Spook Country'; Amazon's strangest page; Axolotl and other weird aquatic life
Spook Country published yesterday. Synopsis from Publisher's Weekly at that Amazon link: Set in the same high-tech present day as Pattern Recognition, Gibson's fine ninth novel offers startling insights into our paranoid and often fragmented, postmodern world. When a mysterious, not yet actual magazine, Node, hires former indie rocker–turned–journalist Hollis Henry to do a story on a new art form that exists only in virtual reality, Hollis finds herself investigating something considerably more dangerous. An operative named Brown, who may or may not work for the U.S. government, is tracking a young, Russian-speaking Cuban-Chinese criminal named Tito. Brown's goal is to follow Tito to yet another operative known only as the old man. Meanwhile, a mysterious cargo container with CIA connections repeatedly appears and disappears on the worldwide Global Positioning network, never quite coming to port. At the heart of the dark goings-on is Bobby Chombo, a talented but unbalanced specialist in Global Positioning software who refuses to sleep in the same spot two nights running.If you haven't read Pattern Recognition, Gibson's previous novel, I highly recommend it. It's about a coolhunter, a woman who gets big bucks to fly around the world telling companies if their products will fly. She just knows, unerringly. (She's also allergic to brand names, and cuts the labels out of her clothes.) I've just reserved Spook Country at the library, so it'll be a while... The strangest page at Amazon? Check this out. Not just the product, but what "Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought" and the reviews. Wet and wild: 27 Aquatic lifeforms you never caught while fishing. Here's one:
This clears up an old mystery for me. In 1956, Argentine author Julio Cortazar published a short story titled "Axolotl," which I read as a teenager, in an anthology of weird stories. (You can read it at that link.) The word stuck with me, although I didn't really know what an axolotl was. Now I do. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 7, 2007Mp3s: Live Rolling Stones 2006, Jimi Hendrix '70; Tetris with countries; Art games...
Jimi Hendrix, Randall's Island 1970
Tetris with European countries. How quickly we forget...
Art Games: Best Indy Titles A "top 27" list, with links and screenshots (pushback, too), at the art blog Mentisworks. Via Robot Wisdom. Noted: Weekly World News to close (aliens not blamed!) . Reuters. Bill Clinton plays saxophone on Arsenio Hall's TV show, June 3, 1992. YouTube video. Every Sunday our characters talk about a book they've read in full-page full-color comic strips. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 5, 2007Netroots debate video: Dems face lefty bloggers at YearlyKos
Seven of the eight declared Democratic presidential candidates showed up (Delaware Sen. Joe Biden skipped it) in Chicago for YearlyKos, the convention of liberal bloggers assembled by Markos Moulitsas' blog, now grown into a group megablog, Daily Kos: Primary sources: Video of the debate.
There's more convention video at PoliticsTV's YouTube site. Searching YearlyKos on YouTube yields lots more, including
Ears only: Audio of the debate (Windows Media) from streaming radio personality and YK Hot Topics panelist Taylor Marsh. She also blogs a wrap: Lobbyists, Boos and the Presidential Forum. The bottom line: It was an amazing forum, which made everyone very proud I'm sure. Clinton standing her ground, thanking the audience and bloggers, even saying that if we'd existed in 1993 her health care would have turned out differently. Obama striking again and again on Iraq. Edwards finding his voice, as well as fighting words that worked. Dodd's passion. Richardson just doesn't hit it, frankly, but maybe as vice president or another cabinet position. Debut: New Yorker: Hendrik Hertzberg leaps into blogging with Dispatches from the YearlyKos convention and leads with, There are two thousand people here, every one of them a news junkie, and I haven’t seen one single person—not one—carrying a newspaper. Gist: This brief summary by blogger David Roberts at Grist (YearlyKos: My long day) captures a lot: Then I went to a candidate forum with Hillary Clinton. The crowd was huge and fairly enthusiastic. She got a softball question on education and basically filibustered going on for about 25 minutes in great and boring detail. After that were a few tough questions which she handled gamely. She's very politiciany. Bulleted list: Bloggers, rivals needle Clinton on lobbyist cash at the Chicago Sun-Times includes a list of biggest ups and downs in the debate. My take: Watch the debate. It's livelier than the polite university auditorium crowds. Only The Times mentioned one of my favorite moments: When each of the candidates was asked whether they would have a blogger in the White House, Mr. Gravel drew loud applause when he said the next president should be his — or her — own blogger. John Edwards had drawn loud applause a few moments earlier after saying his wife Elizabeth would be his blogger.
But I do not underestimate the sexism (or the racism) of the electorate: "Republicans are very pessimistic about 2008. When you talk to them off the record, they don't see how they can win this thing. And then they think for a minute, and only the Democratic Party, with everything in their favor, would say that, 'OK, this is the year either to have a woman or an African-American to break precedent, to do things the country has never done before.' And it gives the Republicans hope." -- Robert S. Novak Media Matters has video and more on that Meet the Press moment. This may in part explain Bloggers Say it Again - They Like Edwards, Jose Antonio Vargas's post at Washington Post political blog The Trail. He writes, Since the beginning of the year, the former North Carolina senator has led the monthly straw poll at Daily Kos, the popular liberal blog that lent its name to this convention. Last month, he won 36 percent of the vote - with Obama at 27 and Clinton at 9. Joe Trippi, who holds rock star status here after he effectively used the Internet to build support for Howard Dean's campaign, is now a major force in the Edwards campaign. Mathew Gross, a former Deaniac who launched the first ever presidential blog, is a chief online adviser for Edwards. All these candidates would replace the alpha-male bullying of the current president and vice-president with smarter, more thoughtful approaches to America's problems and place in the world. Selling that, rather than what we're told God wants, may be the biggest challenge for the Democratic candidate in 2008. Heard in Louisiana: ...Rep. Francis Thompson, D-Delhi said he's not surprised Republicans are having a hard time in his district. He described his constituents as religious, "mostly Protestant" and socially conservative, but not necessarily Republican. "I voted for Barry Goldwater (for president in 1964) the first time I voted," Thompson said, "but I've been a Democrat the whole time." The source is nola.com, a New Orleans Times-Picayune Sunday story headlined, Madam scandal muffles voice for GOP: Quest for La. House will look past Vitter. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 4, 2007Rabbit lovers aghast at WSJ story about feeding them raw to catsMy husband greeted me with this Wall Street Journal story on Hare-Today, a small farm in Springboro, Pa., that's booming by selling raw rabbit meat as cat food: WSJ article - How do cats like rabbits? Very much and preferably raw. The original WSJ story is behind the pay wall, but the blogger at RabbitWise -- where rabbits are pets and cats are their friends -- has copied it to that link on his MySpace site. Since one of its missions is to "to ADVOCATE for the broader welfare of rabbits in general," he is irate: This confirms one of worse fears about rabbit meat. If you also have a companion cat and have ties to the cat community, please ask them not to feed rabbits to their animals. Please write journalist Charles Forelle and give him the other side of the story. Rabbits are the third most popular pet in the country. If we ground up cats to feed to dogs and vice versa the cry of protest would cross the country and back. Joe and I agreed that we're probably feeding our cats the equivalent of Big Macs, but we draw the line at switching to raw rabbit. (How about squirrels Joe asked, watching the rodents fly from branch to branch in our backyard. They scoop out holes in garden beds and pots looking for tulip bulbs to dig up, and regularly scold Max and Miles from a branch just out of their reach.) Hare Today doesn't offer squirrel, but it does offer Ground Green Tripe with Spleen (Beef) and ground meat/bones/organs of chicken, duck, rabbit, pork, goat and turkey; Cornish game hen, pork livers, cow hooves, whole carcasses and much more (including "rabbit ear treats.") RabbitWise might be pleased by some of these alternatives. I'm not sure I am. There's a reason I never wanted to be a doctor or a butcher. Many products are accompanied by reviews. Here's the feedback on Feeder Chicks:
We belled our cats after one or both killed a pair of cardinals last month. (They did not eat them.) The dog-eat-dog world is a metaphor, but the cat-eat-rabbit world is gruesome, gritty reality. Canned mystery meat and dry stuff may be junk food, but we're not ready, and aren't likely ever to be ready to feed raw animals to Miles and Max. They sleep with us. Posted by Sheila Lennon California: If voting machines can't meet standards, use paper ballots
Future historians may record a narrow window in the early years of electronic voting when people actually believed that a company that made both ATM and voting machines was unable to deliver a voting machine that spat out a receipt. As I sit on the back porch blogging with a wireless laptop, it is not magical thinking to imagine all sorts of ways computers counting numbers could be programmed to change them, even while they were guarded and apparently secure. California's secretary of state began closing that window last night. Debra Bowen ruled for science, not faith, in requiring security fixes or else -- "else" is paper ballots -- in her state's next election. Other states are likely to take note. The Brad Blog: Paper Ballots For California! - Secretary Of State Announces De-Certification/Re-Certification Plans For E-Voting Systems In a dramatic late-night press conference, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified, and then recertified with conditions, all but one voting system used in the state. Her decisions, following her unprecedented, independent "Top-to-Bottom Review" of all certified electronic voting systems, came just under the wire to meet state requirements for changes in voting system certification.
More than three dozen California counties have invested millions of dollars in the technology and some will be forced to replace many machines by February under Bowen's order. AP: Calif. Tightens Voting Machine Standards Bowen said she had decertified the machines for use and then recertified them on the condition they meet her new security standards. When asked what would happen if the companies failed to do so, Bowen responded, "I think they will." And an odd response from manufacturers: Company officials have downplayed the results of Bowen's review, saying they reflected unrealistic, worst-case scenarios that would be counteracted by security measures taken by the companies and local election officials. "The public" is not the probable culprit. If elections have been rigged, the outcomes have been determined by insiders with keys to the machine codes, and the manuals. Continuing, Officials with Sequoia said they were disappointed with Bowen's withdrawal of the company's certification but would make necessary improvements. They defended their equipment as accurate and secure. How would they know there has never been electronic tampering? Why should you believe them? ...(the) code team found that the Diebold system still had many of the most serious security flaws that computer scientists had uncovered in the system years ago, despite Diebold's claims that problems had been fixed. This one includes technical details of the vulnerabilities, such as, Votes can be swapped or neutralized by modifying the defined candidate voting coordinates stored on the memory card As a consequence of the report, Senate to Hold Hearing on Security of Voting Machines. This all happened on deadline for the secretary of state, but too late for the L.A. Times deadldine. They went to press with the colorful details of "still waiting" for a press conference that didn't begin until 11:45 p.m. (State's decision on electronic voting machines is delayed): ... county officials were glued to their phones and a growing crowd of reporters, interest groups and state officials gathered outside her office. I can't find a blog update or "online only" update, but perhaps they'll come back with the story behind the scenes of a decision originally intended to be announced at noon. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 3, 2007Friday links dump-- what my overheated brain clicked onDog days links blogging... Chill: Strawberry Watermelon Agua Fresca Recipe from Elise Bauer's Simply Recipes blog.
When it comes to GOP twig Ann Coulter and her Palm Beach voting snafu, the fat lady has yet to sing.
I'm 26 days older than Doc. We've been emailing for years, but we've never met. After this move, I expect we finally will.
Texas students will have four more words to remember when they head back to class this month and begin reciting the state's pledge of allegiance.
How does anyone but me know what I like? Why should I trust the judgement of others over my own? Most importantly... am I the only one out there who thinks this way? Web 2.0 has added almost zero value to my life. I don't need to connect and stay in touch. I don't need to hear what other people are saying. I don't care what news stories are the most read or emailed. I don't need other people to share and tag their... whatever it is they are sharing and tagging these days. I don't want what is popular, I want what is good, and in my experience, those two things only overlap a small percentage of the time. Related: So many sites are inconvenient and free; even if you were willing to pay or click to donate, you can't upgrade past the annoyances: "I'll pay you a penny if you keep that flyout Flash ad out of my face." Even if you're willing to pay the vig, you still get beat up.
Posted by Sheila Lennon August 2, 2007CueCat resurrects to connect Web 2.0 bookwormsI missed this in May: Just who in our colleagues isn’t using Web 2.0? And how do we move them along?. Englishman Michael Clarke: One of the biggest problem I have with evangelising the Live Web or Web 2.0 or Biz 3.0 or whatever it is this week is finding the sweet spot of user focus that will actually turn my colleagues from nervous observers to participants. This has its difficulties.... He cycles through their disinterest in Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Netvibes, Pageflakes? Del.icio.us, Flickr... Nope. But hang on, there’s good news. Two cracks in the dam have appeared lately. The first is the marvellous Library Thing which has seized the imaginations of every librarian in the division. We’ve bought them CueCats and they’ve gone crazy for it.
LibraryThing helps you create a library-quality catalog of your books. You can do all of them or just what you're reading now. What's your barcode? Are we compatible, ISBN-wise?
Belo-owned newspapers and some magazines (Parade, Forbes, Time) printed barcodes next to ads and at the end of stories. The idea was that the reader would scan printed barcodes (the "cue," above) with these devices (the "cats,") and be magically whisked to more advertising or to a story's slideshow or ancillary links, all without having to type messy URLS. The need to read the paper next to your computer was just one obstacle to taking CueCat seriously. The device and the need to load its software baffled new Web users; it worked spottily. A security vulnerability drove the final nail. Wikipedia: "...approximately 140,000 CueCat users who had registered their CueCat were exposed to a breach that revealed their name, email address, age range, gender and zip code." In comments at that LibraryThing CueCat page, fleuree said... Will CueCat scan without being connected to a computer? I mean, can it store the information for uploading later on?...
 For $89.99 back then you could buy the A.T. Cross Convergence pen, above, with a wireless scanner built into the tip. (review) Of course, there's one on eBay for $59.95 plus $5.60 shipping, and you can still buy refills for them at Cross. To use LibraryThing, in 2007 you presumably bring your laptop to your library. Or carry piles of books to your computer. (Yes, you can buy USB Cuecats on eBay for a little less -- one guy sells them for a starting, and usually final, price of $7.89 with $5.25 shipping, but most members want to support LibraryThing, so...) A few more comments: "As You Know" Bob said...
-- June 28, 2001: Eric Celeste, Dallas Observer, Goodbye Kitty: CueCat was a little like a mule with a spinning wheel--so says Dallas' own Lyle Lanley -- March 2004: Fast Company: Where They Are Now J. Jovan Philyaw
Another breakthrough was deploying the free usage level of Campfire which is arguably nothing more than an amazingly businesslike and user-friendly chat room but is as Web 2.0 as they come in terms of usability and immediacy. My boss has started using it for remote meetings with the members of her team scattered eight offices and is absolutely enthralled. Posted by Sheila Lennon August 1, 2007Longevity pill on track; FCC unlocks phones; 'That's Amore,' blues links; Chris Walken cooking video; Justice Roberts, human;
Because humans are so long-lived, SRT501 can't be easily tested for longevity in humans--nor does the Food and Drug Administration recognize "increased life span" as an allowable indication for an approved drug. This is why Sirtris is testing SRT501 for diseases related to aging, such as type 2 diabetes. However, should the drug be approved for diabetes, it will undoubtedly be used to extend life span by many people without diabetes. Geezer power gets a new lease on life. Hard to sustain a movement whose members keep dying, as early AIDS activists discovered. Bonus link: Reason Magazine - Would you give up your immortality to ensure the success of a posthuman world?
The Federal Communications Commission today approved rules for a planned 700-MHz auction that provide for unlocked phones and applications but do not require bidders to provide wholesale wireless services. Related: Ten Reasons To Throw Away Your Cellphone. At Wired. Wired as I am, I don't own a cell phone, never have.
Good listening, though dawn is not my favorite time for the blues if I'm waking up rather than staying up. Leading Mme.'s blog now:
fish boutique by Norwegian illustrator Bjorn Rune Lie
Now: Like a bigga pizza pie?That's Amore! Joe Queenan investigates the origins of Dean Martin's cheesy hit, possibly the cheesiest song of all time. Was Smells Like Teen Spirit really named after a deodorant? Yes, writes Joe Queenan. Yes, it was. But that's not why Kurt Cobain came to loathe Nirvana's biggest hit.
Actor Christopher Walken makes roast chicken with pears. An amateur video at I'm Cooked.
Could adversity temper a jurisprudence that critics of the chief justice have discerned as bloodless and unduly distant from the messy reality of the lives of ordinary people who fail to file their appeals on time? St. George Ambulance responded to a call at about 2 p.m. Monday of a man who had fallen 5 to 10 feet and landed on a dock, hitting the back of his head. The patient was ashen and was foaming at the mouth. -- Maine Coast Now: Chief Justice Roberts to spend night at hospital Posted by Sheila Lennon Facebook, Day 2Newsies Steve Outing (Looking for the anti Facebook) and Ryan Sholin (Find yourself a nice comfortable niche and sell it like blueberry pancakes) both seized on my lead on yesterday's Facebook post as an argument for niche networks. Somewhere, I like to think, there is or will be a network comprising only those who can find it. And when I finally stumble in there, they’ll say, “We’ve been waiting for you.” I confess I was thinking less concretely, more like The Journey to the East. It was actually the last thing I wrote, but sometimes the conclusion at the end of thinking and writing a piece is actually the natural lead. I never know how it will come out. The great thing about the Internet was and is that it's the platform without a platform vendor. That's why it has been the engine of growth and innovation for so long, over thirty years now. There's no entity with eminent domain to foreclose on a developer's relationship with customers. And none of us are incentivized to care for a platform's garden in the same way we are with the community garden.... From our side: Broken links: bad. All Facebook links are broken if you haven't joined the crowd. Bonus link: Travel guru Arthur Frommer blogs a metaphor for Facebook: What's it like to cruise on one of those new ships carrying 3,000 passengers and more? Posted by Sheila Lennon |
'Bush's brain' resigning: 
CueCats are handheld scanners, not so Web 2.0. They're Web 2000. But they enable LibraryThing, since the alternative is typing in ISBN numbers:
my passport photo blogging since 2002 garden blogs archived headlines  Sheila Lennon is features & interactive producer of projo.com, the Web site of The Providence (R.I.) Journal Rhode Island |
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| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |