Month: October 2007

ramblings

Eat Some Candy You Pagan

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Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. That is why the pic below (which I carved last night) is called a Jack-O’-Lantern.
hday.jpg
It can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard drinking old farmer who tricked the devil into climbing a tree, and trapped him by carving a cross into the trunk of the tree. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack which dooms him to forever wander the earth at night. While this bedtime parable was told by Irish parents to their children for centuries, the American tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration. The carved pumpkin was associated generally with harvest time in America, and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid to late 19th century.
The Wikipedia entry that I quoted above really made me laugh when it talked about the whole “trick or treat” phenomenon in these terms (emphasis mine): “Although the practice resembles the older traditions of guising in Ireland and Scotland, ritual begging on Halloween does not appear in English-speaking North America until the 20th century, and may have developed independently.” Hysterical!

ramblings

Cute Guns

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When a frequent reader sent me a link to a Hello Kitty Assault Rifle yesterday, I knew immediately I had to post it. Its just so damn cute:

Hello-Kitty-Assault-Rifle_4.jpg

The gun comes from a site called GlamGuns which is full of ridiculous guns, like the gun above and one called “My Little Carbine.” Lovely.
Before you start to get too freaked out about the next school shooting happening in a pre-K class, if you read the fine print, you’ll see “NOTE: This site is a parody for humor purposes only. No actual weapons may be bought on this site.” Furthermore, if you try to buy a gun, you’ll get sent to Amazon where you can buy a book called A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Form whose premise is that “parody is a genre fundamental to 20th century art forms.” The author’s intro states, “Parody is not a new phenomenon by any means, but its ubiquity in all the arts of this century has seemed to me to necessitate a reconsideration of both its nature and its function.”
Via Dave

politics

The "Dollar Auction" In Iraq

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Economics professors have a standard game they use to demonstrate to their students how apparently rational decisions can create a disastrous result which they call a “dollar auction.” As you read on, keep the whole Iraqi war debacle in mind.
Here is how the “dollar auction” works: a dollar is offered for sale to the highest bidder, with only one wrinkle – the second-highest bidder has to pay up on their losing bid as well.
Initially, almost every student gets sucked in. The first bids a penny, looking to make 99 cents. The second bids 2 cents, the third 3 cents, and so on, each feeling they have a chance at something good on the cheap. The early stages are fun, and the bidders wonder what possessed the professor to be willing to lose some money.
The problem surfaces when the bidders get up close to a dollar. After 99 cents the last vestige of profitability disappears. The highest bidders now realize that they stand to lose no matter what, but that they can still buffer their losses by winning the dollar. They just have to outlast the other player.
If this strategy is followed, the highest bidders usually run the bid up several dollars, turning the apparent shot at easy money into a ghastly battle of spiraling disaster. Just like the war in Iraq. Hmmm. Has anyone in the current administration taken Econ 101?
This isn’t my original thought: Oliver R. Goodenough wrote about the dollar aution in the Rutland Herald, but I liked it so much that I thought I should share it with y’all.
Via Neu

science

Salt Water As Fuel?

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When John Kanzius of Erie, PA man announced he’d ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he’d invented, some thought it was a hoax. Not only is it not a hoax, scientists know why burns the way it does and he has been able to keep salt water in a test tube burning like a candle, as long as it is exposed to radio frequencies.
This leads me to think that the (to use the pun you know is coming) burning question is how can we use the world’s most abundant substance as clean fuel? Or, more importantly, as my friend and former WGTCTIP2 author Erik puts it, “Does it take more energy to run the necessary storage equipment than the process generates?”
To continue, Erik wants to know why the article does not mention the obvious:

“Hydrogen fuel cells are totally possible, but the one hang-up is the current effort and cost to generate pure hydrogen needed to fuel them. Right now you’d need to capture it from a fossil fuel burning reaction, which obviously isn’t ideal, and then store it at a gas station for people to fill up, making it a huge infrastructure challenge as well. With this machine, instead of burning the released hydrogen, capture it. We could all one day have these in our garages and use them to fuel our cars ourselves.”

Below is a clip from the local news about this cancer fighter who accidentally lit salt water on fire and maybe in the process has saved mankind:

Via Neu

music

DRM is Going Down!

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DRM stands for digital rights management, aka the utter bullshit that companies use to “protect” their content from the very people who gave them money for said content in the first place. DRM sucks and not just because the song/show/movie you bought will only play on certain “approved” device(s) – there are about 10 other good reasons why it sucks which I’m not going get into in this post. Not only do most music consumers hate the very idea of DRM, now music industry professionals are going on the record against this failed idea as well.
For instance, Ian Rodgers, the Head of Yahoo! Music, the #1 music destination on the web, stated two weeks ago that he won’t spend a single dollar more on DRM. As he so eloquently put it,

“In the end you get what you pay for. I won’t spend another dime paying engineers to build false control, making listening to music harder for music-lovers. I will put all of my energy into making it easier and making the experience better. I suggest you do the same.”

Now for a little history about this whole nonsense: DRM became “hot” due to the Napster and P2P phenomenon which caught publishers by complete surprise. Their only strategy for the last 8 years has been to circle the wagons and go into lock down mode while they try to figure out how to take advantage of this new digital landscape. I do not use “take advantage” lightly; what the music publishers have done over this almost decades worth of time is take advantage of their customers, by first rolling out poorly thought out and poorly executed DRM strategies and then by trying to get everyone to use subscription based models – you don’t own any music, you just “lease” it – to make as much money as they can.
eMusic has always known what users want and has allowed them to buy DRM free MP3s since they first launched their site years ago. However, the eMusic song catalog has always been limited to the lesser (though still good) known acts of the world which has been one of its main drawbacks. The other main drawback is that you can only buy a package, like 30 tracks in a month for $9.99, and not individual songs from eMusic. So, I like the site but I don’t love it.
Apple then got on the bandwagon a few months back by starting to sell DRM free songs in its iTunes store at a premium, which was a step in the right direction but still annoying and not just because Apple basically hid (from a information architecture / usability point of view) this whole DRM free section of the site. As an aside, I have been buying tracks off of iTunes for a while now – mostly because my wife keeps getting gift certificates to the iTunes store so hey, why not right? I love the store but hate the rights managed AAC format. This means that some of my great music can only be played on an iPod. While I do have an iPod now, who knows what the future brings? Being locked into a certain device in order to listen to music I bought and paid for is aggravating and upsetting. Trying to find the new DRM free iTunes tracks is almost as aggravating. Almost.
Then, just about a month ago things got very interesting. Amazon, praise Jesus, rolled out their DRM free MP3 store and hallelujah, there is a real player out there who can honestly compete with iTunes (i.e. the store has over 2 million songs) . Say it with me the way that Marv Albert says it: “Yesss!”
Finally, a major store exists that sells you a product that you, not they, control. You give them money. They give you control. I’m so in love with this new store and the idea of being able to buy individual DRM free MP3s from major artists that I even posted a small banner on my site to the new Amazon MP3 store to try and help our their business. Go check out their store and buy a track while you are at it – it will only cost you a buck (or less).
The even better news is that Amazon is being taken quite seriously. Apple has cut the costs for their DRM free music and I bet that these types of track will become easier to find / more heavily promoted as well.
Y!’s Mr. Rodgers said, “Convenience wins, hubris loses” and I hope he is right.

tech

Window CE + ME + NT = VISTA

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For those who have a few minutes for a geeky laugh, check out the video below. My favorite part of “Vista Sucks” is when the announcer says, “From the company that taught you to turn off the computer by clicking the start button.” Enjoy.
2013 UPDATE: the video mentioned above has been removed due to a copyright issue – a photo used in it is actually a rights managed photo and I’ve taken the video down per a request from Getty Images.

humor

Be Obsequious, Purple, and Clairvoyant

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I read the word “ubiquity” in a presentation today and immediately “be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant” popped into my mind. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, its a line from The Grandmother’s Song by Steve Martin. I love it – it starts off quite simple and then gets progressively weirder and funnier each stanza – but its best hearing it for yourself. It’s on his “Let’s Get Small” album which is terribly funny from start to finish. Try not to laugh when listening to it. I dare you.

music

Zep is going Digital

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At long last, Led Zeppelin is going to sell their music archive in a digital format. This event is coinciding with the release of the new Led Zep box set and will only stoke the crazy enthusiastic fan fires that have been burning bright ever since the group announced that they are playing as a band again for a one time only tribute concert in honor of Ahmet Ertegun (which I didn’t get tickets to – boo hoo – but neither did about 998,000 people).
Led Zeppelin is known for not licensing their music, and knowing this, Richard Linklater filmed a plea by actor Jack Black in front of 1,000 screaming fans, imploring the band to let the film production use the “Immigrant Song” in the movie. The plea worked and the filmed request is included on the DVD. Said Randall Poster, a music supervisor on the film, “It’s a very special thing to have one in your movie. “It’s the holy sound of the temple of rock.”
Via Jessie

tech

Social Network Built For Two

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If you have not heard of Ze Frank, well, you haven’t been paying attention to the blogosphere because he is one of the most “famous” bloggers out there. Frank won a 2002 Webby Award for Best Personal Websit, in 2005, he was featured in Time Magazine’s “50 Coolest Websites” and Frank spoke at the TED Conference in 2004 and 2005.
While I know of him, I never check out his site. That being said, someone today sent me a little ditty he wrote and produced titled Social Network for Two which is just catchy, techie and nerdy enough for me to post. Happy Friday!

politics

Food, Or Should I Say MRE, For Thought

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I’ve been catching up on old Thomas Friedman columns and getting nice and angry about what is taking place in the good old USA. Here is the last part of his recent Charge It To My Kids column:

Previous American generations connected with our troops by making sacrifices at home — we’ve never passed on the entire cost of a war to the next generation, said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who has written a history — “The Price of Liberty” — about how America has paid for its wars since 1776.
“In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries,” said Mr. Hormats, “Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes — and nonessential programs have been cut — to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families.”
In his celebrated Farewell Address, Mr. Hormats noted, George Washington warned against “ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burdens we ourselves ought to bear.”

I once again have started to day dream about moving to Canada…