None of the Above

[ rants ] 2000-09-25

Hmm, this doesn't bode well: I'd seen this interview with the creator of the SIMS logged in various places, and I finally read it just now. Initially, it sounded to me rather intriguing, some of the things they are planning to do with the game, namely, make an online version next year so that people can interact with each others' Sims.

But then he talks about what it's going to be like:

One of the things we've got -- and this is one of the cool parts of this -- is that we've got this concept of friendship. There's going to be this popularity game that's actually played. If you have popular people that are your friends, your popularity goes up. And so one of the sub-games of the whole thing is going to be this popularity game that we'll play -- this whole backstabbing, high school thing. That's actually a very important concept of the game.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the backstabbing high school thing was fun in real life, and it's about the last thing I'd be interested in playing a simulation of. A popularity game? Ugh, how stupid. What an utter waste of time.

Gee, let's take the most aggravating, fraught-with-emotional-pain parts of life and focus on them in an online simulation!

Perhaps I'm alone, or relatively so, in seeing it this way, and maybe the thing will take off and people will love it. Or then again, maybe people will like other aspects of the game and the popularity thing won't really get much attention.

Who am I kidding? Heh. Human nature, being what it is, I think I know what's going to happen. This may be the crack cocaine of online gaming.

Count me out.

[ beauty ] 2000-09-22

Amazing feats of Lego building: Can be found at Eric Harshbarger's site. Truly amazing, especially the Lego desk (and the story of how and why it was built, heh).

My brother Bill and I played with Legos enthusiastically throughout our childhoods, he more than I. I still remember the sound of the big bag o Legos being poured onto the floor, and the sound of scraping one's hand through to find a particular piece.

My brother still buys Lego sets on occasion, though I haven't since I was a kid. I guess whenever Elena's ready to start playing with them (when she's old enough not to try to eat them), then I'll get back into it. :)

[ humor ] 2000-09-22

The great pop vs. soda controversy: They have a map that plots the differing ways people around the U.S. refer to carbonated beverages in the general sense. Pretty interesting.

I grew up in Colorado and we always said "pop". When my sister went away to college in Wisconsin, she entered serious "soda" territory. They looked at her funny whenever she said "pop".

Regional linguistic variations are rather intriguing, I think. Just helps to remember that languages are always changing, and that the language in one place isn't the same as somewhere else.

[ weblogs ] 2000-09-22

5 weblogs by one guy: David Gentle has not one but several weblogs, which I don't have time to read right now but I want to check into later.

[ canoe ] 2000-09-22

I've got lots of time to do Molokai: I'm referring of course to the annual Outrigger Canoeing World Championship race from the island of Molokai to Oahu, 41 miles across the Kaiwi channel. The women's version is called Na Wahine O Ke Kai. It's the Big Race that outrigger people typically aspire to.

I came across this article about a team of women who train individually, since they live in all sorts of different places very far away from one another, and then come together just for one day to compete in the Molokai race.

They won last year! Wow. And get this: the average of the women on the team this year is 40. Astounding, and wonderful.

So, since I'm only 28, I've got plenty of time to get to my peak in this sport, and maybe someday do the Molokai race. Personally I'm not all that competitive, I just think it would be a blast to participate. I'm glad to know that a crew of women from various places can do so well - I imagine that would be the kind of crew I'd eventually be a part of.

I'll have to get together with the folks from the Texas Outrigger Canoe Club over near Houston, and see if one of these years they want to send a women's Molokai team...

[ later ] 2000-09-22

And still more webloggen: Argh! I'm all spread out with too many browser windows of great stuff to read, and I keep finding more and more and more. So I'm logging 'em so I can get some more work done and go back to 'em later.

[ books ] 2000-09-21

Zen and the Brain: is a book that I'm interested in, and it's gotten some good reviews at Amazon. And while I'm on the topic of books, I got A Pattern Language yesterday, and Judge Judy's book, Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever. Judge Judy's a hoot! And I've been meaning to read A Pattern Language for a long time. I'm still making my way slowly through Cryptonomicon. And I looked for Snow Crash again yesterday, and again they didn't have it! What's the deal? Argh!

[ family ] 2000-09-21

Sadie is gone. On Tuesday night, my mother called and told me that Sadie had died. The previous night, she had been up with her at 2am and 5am, because Sadie was having serious trouble breathing. When my mom came home from work, Sadie had thrown up several times and hadn't finished her breakfast.

That was the most crucial sign - my mom always said that she'd know it was time for Sadie to go when she didn't eat anymore. (and oh, how Sadie loved to eat! She was on the tubby side most of her life)

So my mother met my brother and a friend of hers at the vet, and Sadie wiggled her rear with happiness when my brother showed up, she said. My mom held Sadie and said goodbye, and said it was very peaceful.

So now she is not in pain anymore, not suffering, not struggling to breathe, not unsettled and uncomfortable and tired. I am sad, but it still really hasn't hit me yet. I guess because I am so far away. I'm so sad I didn't get to say goodbye to her, but I suppose in a way, I did. I saw her just a little over a month ago, when I was visiting my mom and attending my high school reunion. That was before we knew she had cancer.

So my last memories of Sadie are of her vibrant, enthusiastic self, strong and happy and full of love. And that is how I shall always remember her.

This is the last picture of Sadie I ever took, during that visit. Elena is standing, Autumn is crawling, my brother Bill is riding the mower, and his wife Diane is coming in the door.

I'm going to write a big piece of all my memories about Sadie, and dig up all my pictures of her and scan them.

I'll sure miss her. I'm glad that I spent lots of time petting and scratching her when I last saw her. I hope she knew how much I loved her.

For fun, take a look at a video clip of Sadie chasing her bumble ball, from back in March of this year.

[ mammalog ] 2000-09-21

Tales of wasted milk and biting: The other day, I got... very full on the left side in the afternoon at work, and I was going to go and offload some milk, but then I forgot, and by the time we left, I was painfully engorged. I hate it when that happens, especially since this means that any time anything so much as brushes the affected breast, it feels like a huge bruise that's being punched. So as I picked up Elena and held her on my hip, there was all sorts of incidental touching, and it ached like hell.

So they break us the bad news: Elena bit two kids at school. Geez, I felt like some kind of horrid Bad Mommy. I am so mortified that my child bit other children. She got a big talking to by me and her dad, and she's in automatic crib exile the moment she nibbles either one of us at home. I really, really hope this stops soon.

Anyway, we got home, Elena nursed some (Ahhhhhhhhh!!! Relief!!!), and then I pumped and got a good 10 ounces, and felt even more relieved. Unfortunately, the 5 oz I put in Elena's sippy cup the next day was left at the house, and I was duly miffed. Elena had nothing to drink with breakfast or after being picked up, and my carefully pumped milk was sitting at home, slowly spoiling. Argh! But she still had the other 5 oz to drink with her lunch, so it wasn't a total loss.

I don't know why, but we had a particularly tender and sweet day the other day, Elena and me. We just clicked, I suppose. She was calm and happy and snuggly all nestled on my hip as I carried her around. I fed her, gave her her bath, read with her in bed, and nursed her to sleep, and the whole time I just felt this great love and closeness between us. And I fell in love with my daughter all over again.

I've noticed since the beginning this motherly connection thing has all come in stages for me. I remember when it first hit me, like a tidal wave, about 24 hours after she was born. I just looked at her sleeping sweetly on my hospital bed, and burst into tears and felt this incredible upwelling of love and protective feeling for her. This happened several more times those first few days, and here and there later on in the ensuing weeks and months. (Granted, the massive abrupt hormonal changes of birth & postpartum life had much to do with it, I'm sure.)

Sometimes I just have to stop and realize how happy I am to be Elena's mother, and how fortunate that I get to be this close to such an amazing person as she is.

[ my site ] 2000-09-19

Added an idiolect page: If I use a strange word, and you're wondering to yourself, "What the hell is that?", check my idiolect page. I have put a few terms and definitions there, and I'll add more as they occur to me. I actually set this entire thing up because as I was writing the previous entry I realized that no one would know what a iako was. And I didn't feel like explaining it in the entry. For someone as lazy and disorganized as I usually am, this is strikingly anomalous. I chalk it up to my recently-upped vitamin Z dosage.

[ canoe consume ] 2000-09-19

I need a paddle bag: And these look pretty good. I love the wild Hawaiian print. I only need one that will hold one paddle, and then I can sew on some extra velcro/elastic and a little pocket at the bottom so I can tote my iakos and rudder as well.

[ atheism xmas ] 2000-09-19

Holidays as an atheist: Some good links I found on the Atheist parenting board:

Raising Humanist Children mentions a mother who explains how her family views the holidays during their winter school play (which I really like).
Not really holiday related, but there's an atheist movie review of Disney's Toy Story, which makes me want to buy this one for Elena. I saw it once, but didn't really remember all the stuff that's in it that shows an atheist perspective. Neato!
This thread from the board mentions the idea of celebrating holidays to honor famous/important people, and extending the idea. Imagine a Ben Franklin Day, or a Confucius Day. Ooo, I like this! I'm thinking of Buddha Day, Lao-Tse Day, Rumi Day, Mohammed Day, Bill Hicks Day, Tom Lehrer Day, Gandhi Day.

Personally, I view Christmas as a time for family togetherness, celebrating the warmth and light between us, and adorning stuff with lights to recognize the darkest time of the year. When she's old enough, I'll teach Elena about how the earth revolves, why we have seasons, what the solstices are, what historical peoples thought when the light was going away day by day, how people use symbols and rituals to psychologically ground themselves in external events (I'm thinking of Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth), and of course how to make really neato pretty stuff with lights.

Which reminds me, I have to get planning for what we can do this year... hmmm. And debate the whole Santa thing with Spencer, sigh. I still remember how angry I was as a kid, how stupid I felt when I found out Santa wasn't real. I felt like a rube, like the only one who wasn't in on the joke. (I am the youngest in my family, by the way).

I don't want to do that to Elena. I'd prefer to tell her that it's a personification, a symbol, a way for people to think about the spirit of giving and benevolence. But how old will she be when she can grasp such abstractions? I don't know.

[ family ] 2000-09-19

Sadie's doing just a wee bit better: I talked to my mom last night, and Sadie's vet has increased her prescription of Lasix to deal with the fluid caused by her failing heart. Hopefully this will eliminate some if not all of the fluid from her chest. My mom said that Sadie also took to attacking one of her chew man toys while she was preparing Sadie's dinner, a good sign since this is something she hasn't done for several days.

My mom made herself a T-bone steak last night and gave Sadie the T-bone, which she enthusiastically chewed on with great joy.

Still, we all know it will be time for her to go quite soon. I just hope the extra Lasix can give her at least a few more good days. We'll see how it goes.

[ beauty ] 2000-09-19

Sometimes it's the obvious things that get ya: There is this painting, well, a print of a painting, that my grandfather bought many many years ago. It hung in my mother's house as she grew up, and she liked it, and then it hung in my grandmother's apartment, where I saw it often when visiting her, and I really liked it too. This is what it looks like:

Growing up, this was a rare thing - a realistic, beautiful, non-pornographic picture of a naked woman. I think this is a Good Thing for kids to see. Where, in our society, are they going to get an idea of what real people (not supermodels) look like naked?

Anyway, when my grandmother died, this picture went to my mother, who recently gave it to me, and it now hangs in my bedroom.

None of us knew the artist or the title. I was going to scan an image of it, and then ask people on the net if they knew what it was.

Then it occurred to me to look for the artist's signature. Duh. So, subtly written in the lower left corner I see "J. Ingres". So simple.

I looked him up at art.com, and sure enough he's there (he is most famous for the painting "The Grand Odalisque"), and there's the picture. It's called "The Spring". And I can get another print of it if I want (bigger than the one I've got, and not very expensive).

I would have linked directly to the picture there, but with their bs frame system, I couldn't (and yes I know how to decode the URLs in frames, but they use some bs system where every page's dynamically allocated bs URL expires almost immediately).

[ beauty ] 2000-09-19

I am now lava re-enabled: The light of my lava lamp at my desk burned out a couple of weeks ago. I know that they require a certain specific type of bulb, so what did I do?

I scalped the bulb from the lava lamp I have at home, since I'm too lazy to go bulb shopping. Also, I never use the one at home.

So now I can keep my hands warm again, here in the Arctic Simulator.

More about my lava lamp: it's silver with red lava in clear liquid. I've had it for several years, and I love it. When I first got it, the lava was almost transparent, but then slowly over the first few dozen hours that I ran it, little snowflakes of opacity began to grow within it. It was amazing to watch - you could see the heat currents in the lava dome. Near the center, the little snowflakes would move up, then reach the top of the dome, cool, and drift to the outer part of the dome before gently descending. Absolutely incredible to watch. And then of course it gradually became totally opaque, but that's okay.

A long time later, I noticed that it tended to run a little bit too hot - the lava would particulate into little bitty red balls, and clear bubbles would frequently appear within the main body of the red lava. Not good. So I found the perfect solution: a dimmer switch. Now I can control the mellowtude of my lava lamp with great accuracy. I saw a cow orker who had a lava lamp at his desk as well who had the same problem, so I loaned him a dimmer switch, and he's had good results since then.

Why do I have a lava lamp at work? Because in my cubicle (conveniently located near FIVE A/C vents) my hands would get so cold that I couldn't really type very well anymore. I found that if I held the lava lamp in my lap and hugged it with my hands, they'd warm up nicely. I've moved cubes about four times since then, but it's still darn cold here most days.

My lava lamp at home is black with red lava and clear liquid, and was given to me by my father, since he had an extra one. He had an extra one because his wife, my step-mother, used to work for Haggerty Industries, the company that makes lava lamps (she worked in a different division that sold ceramic supplies). So they had several, and once my dad got one with the color scheme he wanted (black lamp with black lava), he didn't use the black/red one anymore.

And in case you didn't know, there are people at SGI who use lava lamps to generate random numbers. Pretty spiffy, although they are way too pedantic about calling them Lava Lites instead of lava lamps, trademark nonsense and all. But I understand, since they're quite visible to the Lava Lawyers.

But me, I'll always call 'em lava lamps. They can bite me.

[ my site ] 2000-09-19

Added the Categories page: Which now gives an explanation of what my categories are for. I also redid the left column a bit, making headings bold, and linking to my other pages.

I also brought the number of entries per page back down to 20. I had kicked it up to 30, but things were getting Real Slow, so I put it back down to 20.

The other day, Daniel told me that I was getting some megaboss number of hits, which gave me mixed feelings... I mean, on the one hand I don't want to know because I'll get all weird and start adjusting what I write to be more like what I think people will want to read (or maybe not, I dunno). And just the idea that that many people are reading kind of freaks me out and makes me feel judged and thus nervous, in a way. And then again it's flattering (well, only if you all keep coming back). Which brings up another point, now I'm going to be insanely curious about how the numbers track over time. Argh!

As they say about Napster: Genie. Bottle. Uncorked. Deal.

And then there's the fact that miso is not all that powerful of a machine, so it loads kind of slowly, so I'm kind of self-conscious about that. How silly of me. Sigh.

And of course my comfy little illusion that only about five people were reading my log (three of whom were me, reloading the page) is now shattered.

I need one of the flashie things from Men In Black so I can forget that I had 11,000 hits the other day. (Not trying to brag. Really.)

[ weblogs ] 2000-09-18

I like this: Slumberland. It's a weblog.

[ quotes ] 2000-09-18

Chomsky quote about the net: From a thingie at Greenspun:

I think that there are good things about it, but there are also aspects of it that concern and worry me. This is an intuitive response -- I can't prove it -- but my feeling is that, since people aren't Martians or robots, direct face-to-face contact is an extremely important part of human life. It helps develop self-understanding and the growth of a healthy personality.
You just have a different relationship to somebody when you're looking at them than you do when you're punching away at a keyboard and some symbols come back. I suspect that extending that form of abstract and remote relationship, instead of direct, personal contact, is going to have unpleasant effects on what people are like. It will diminish their humanity, I think.

For what it's worth, I agree with him. I may pontificate on this topic later.

[ consume ] 2000-09-18

Be jealous of my hot new purchases! I recently got some stuff from Campmor, sellers of camping & outdoorsy-type products.

Magik Set picnic set has full service for 6, and comes in a spiffy space-age container! (Looks kind of like Saturn, sort of). I can't wait to have a picnic and try it out.
Timex turn & pull alarm watch. I've wanted one of these ever since I saw their cool hip retro-style ads. It's great! I love the flashing Indiglo when the alarm goes off.
Timex kid's watch with pretty flowers. The band is elastic, so Elena can put it over her wrist easily. It's really neat looking, too. Hey, for less than $6, it can't be beat! (The trick will be keeping it from getting lost/destroyed until she's old enough to truly make use of it).

For a limited time (until the stocks of these sale items run out), you can be as cool as me by buying the same things! Enjoy!

[ canoe family ] 2000-09-18

Had a good weekend, almost totally: I got a bath (yea!), got to go canoeing (and Spencer took more video), got a new TV (27", our old one was 13", and get this, it's so old, it had a KNOB for turning the channels. You know, click-click-click-click-click), rearranged the living room more pleasingly, made Elena's first box fort with the TV box and watched her enjoy it immensely, took some cute video of Elena and transferred it, cooked and enjoyed some good food (from raw ingredients, even! I must be finally becoming an adult), and generally relaxed and had a good time.

I also got a lot of reading done. I'm up past the 500-page mark in Cryptonomicon now, and still enjoying it immensely. It's fun to read a book that's so huge that even after 500 pages, you know that you've got some 400 more still left to dig in to. What a lovely feeling!

At one point the weather was sunny and perfect (i.e., not brutally hot as is typical) and we were all outside, Elena playing sweetly, sliding down her litle slide, and Spencer weeding & raking, and me giving Elena rides in her little push-car, having her help me pick up sticks and add them to the Official Stick Pile. It was just a really nice time and I smiled and felt all warm and cuddly inside, and realized that things were Just Right. Truly lovely.

On Sunday night we walked to the video store and got a couple of videos. We watched the first one, Supernova, and it was awful. Please don't waste your money or your time, unless you like making fun of bad movies. Bad script, bad dialogue, bad acting, bad story, bad pacing, bad lighting, bad bad bad bad bad. My intelligence was insulted about every thirty seconds. It was that bad. Predictable, cliche, doofy, contrived, bah! The only good part was the special effects, which were neat to look at (some of them, anyway). It makes me wonder how a movie this bad gets made. They obviously spent a lot of money on it, but it's one of these STV (straight to video) monsters.

So, talking to my mother yesterday, I learned some very bad news about Sadie. My mom said she's not doing very well at all. She's unable to get comfortable anymore, and it looks like she's retaining fluid and straining to breathe. Today she goes to the vet to get Sadie's stitches out (from the surgery), and they'll assess her then. I have a very ominous feeling - it seems Sadie's quality of life is going right down the tubes. :(

I don't know what to say, just that I'm very sad but more than that I'm just really in denial. It just doesn't seem real at this point. The last time I saw her, a little over a month ago, she seemed healthy and strong and happy and like she was doing just great. And now I know I will probably never see her again. I don't even know if she'll last a week at this rate.

I know my mother will make the best decision she can. I wish I could help her now somehow, this must be so difficult for her. All I know to do is tell her I'm thinking of her, hurting with her, and that I know she's the best mom Sadie could possibly ever have.

Bye bye, Sadie. I love you, little dog. :(

[ humor random thoughts ] 2000-09-18

If it were my job to name this month: I think I would name it something like: "Month in which great numbers of squirrels appear dead on the road."

I don't know why, but there are many many more dead squirrels than usual these days. It must be the time of year when they are repeatedly daring each other to run across the street or something. It's probably the risk-loving energetic young males, I'd bet. Probably competing to impress the squirrel babes.

Speaking of squirrels, I came up with a pithy slogan for a sign to place near our bird feeders. Spencer doesn't want the squirrels to eat any of the bird seed, and he scares them away when he notices them pilfering from the feeders. I thought that we could place a sign which said:

No feathers,
No beak,
No service.

Plus maybe a little silhouette of a squirrel with the international "NO" symbol (circle with a slash through it). Maybe I could make millions selling such novelties!

[ random thoughts ] 2000-09-15

For the record: There was a torrential downpour when I left work. In case you care. "Clear", my ass! But it was fun, because we needed the rain. Didn't get all that much rain at our house, though.

I like extreme weather, I always have. It makes me happy when the weather is something that happens to you, instead of just something that you notice (or don't) outside the window.

[ books ] 2000-09-14

Compare:

Shakespeare, Hamlet:

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon:

The room contains a few dozen living human bodies, each one a big sack of guts and fluids so highly compressed that it will squirt for a few yards when pierced. Each one is built around an armature of 206 bones connected to each other by notoriously fault-prone joints that are given to obnoxious creaking, grinding, and popping noises when they are in other than pristine condition. This structure is draped with throbbing steak, inflated with clenching air sacks, and pierced by a Gordian sewer filled with burbling acid and compressed gas and asquirt with vile enzymes and solvents produced by the many dark, gamy nuggets of genetically programmed meat strung along its length. Slugs of dissolving food are forced down this sloppy labyrinth by serialized convulsions, decaying into gas, liquid, and solid matter which must all be regularly vented to the outside world lest the owner go toxic and drop dead. Spherical, gel-packed cameras swivel in mucus-greased ball joints. Infinite phalanxes of cilia beat back invading particles, encapsulate them in goo for later disposal. In each body a centrally located muscle flails away at an eternal, circulating torrent of pressurized gravy.

[ my site ] 2000-09-14

It just wasn't worth it: For a few tens of minutes, I had two dueling weather report picture thingies in the left column of this page, then I realized that they were both relentlessly WRONG. They claimed it was "Clear", when I see many many clouds outside my window, which have been there for quite a while. C'mon, at least give me a "Partly cloudy". Plus, I think they slowed things down a bit, and poor little miso is so slow already, I don't want to make it worse.

[ humor ] 2000-09-14

Sometimes I'm just so darn witty: A cow orker sent out a message to everyone a little while ago, consisting of the following message:

PLEASE DO NOT EAT SOMEONE ELSES FOOD NOR HANDLE THEIR BAGS IMPROPERLY!

To which I replied (also to everyone):

And don't drink any baby bottles full of milk that may appear from time to time.
The milk won't harm you, but the creator of the milk might.
-Beth

I'm guessing that this is the type of thing that only the other working & pumping mothers here at work can truly identify with. Steal my lunch? I hate you. Steal my milk? I HURT you!

[ beauty humor ] 2000-09-13

The glory of old motels: This collection of old motel postcards is really neato (via David Chess's weblog). I can't help but feel a profound desolation looking at many of these motels. It's hard to imagine them fresh and new and happening. The commentary about the cards on this site is witty, insightful, and made me laugh out loud multiple times. And I'm not even done going through them all yet.

[ later ] 2000-09-13

Looks like a hoax, but apparently isn't: These people use robots to spray graffiti and distribute pamphlets. Heh! I want to watch the demo movies of them in action at home later. What's next, ones that spray pepper spray at cops?

[ people ] 2000-09-13

I like it so much, I'm logging it twice! Just exploring more of Tom Erickson's pages, noting that his key story was quite entertaining, his remote meetings piece is excellent, and he's got a lot of interesting stuff about computer-mediated communication, "persistent conversations", and whatnot. Wow. I'll have to delve deeper here.

[ consume ] 2000-09-13

I am a slave to Lands' End Overstocks: Every time they send me a catalog, I find myself ordering something. I just can't help it, I tell you! I have no free will in this regard. I just ordered three shirts (on sale of course). Sigh.

[ people ] 2000-09-13

Another gem from the esteemed Mr. Chess: This fellow's page is pretty nifty, and I especially like his comments about working at home. (which is, by the way, something I'd like to do someday. I think).

[ body food ] 2000-09-12

Ouch: I cut myself last night while cutting up sun-dried tomatoes for the green beans that I make. I took a little chunk off of the corner of my left index finger. Most of the cut off bit was that tough thick skin, but I got a little bit of it deeper, and it hurt like hell. And bled quite a bit too. I hate it when that happens. So I put a band-aid on it. And of course afterwards, I had to pick through the sun-dried tomato bits and find the little piece of skin, heh.

[ books ] 2000-09-12

Argh! I just looked for some paint with water books for Elena (and me) at Amazon, and I'm amazed at how many of them are religious. Sigh. It's everywhere. I'm just SICK OF IT sometimes.

[ food ] 2000-09-11

Evidence for cannibalism among the Anasazi: via Genehack. Apparently they found human myoglobin in a fecal sample, which is pretty damning evidence of a person eating another. I can't remember where I read it, but somewhere someone said that the Anasazi "disappearing" wasn't really much of a mystery at all - they just must have run out of food and moved on. This gives some credence to the idea that perhaps they were starving before they left (and maybe that's why they left). So perhaps the cannibalism was a last act of desperation when there was nothing left to eat? Who knows...

[ rants ] 2000-09-11

Some people are just fucking scum: This weekend, at Spencer's behest (read: dragging my surly lazy rear end out of the house), we went to the Austin Nature Center with Elena for a little while. They have all sorts of spiffy exhibits of local wildlife and plant life and stuff, much of it oriented towards kids. It's pretty nice.

In one area, they have basically little zoo exhibits of some rescued wild animals that cannot be released for one reason or another (injury, too imprinted on humans, don't know how to catch food themselves, etc). Among the creatures who were orphaned or injured or just kept as pets by people who underestimated their inherent wildness was a hawk.

This hawk had its wings broken, ON PURPOSE, so that it wouldn't fly away from its owners. What kind of hideous excuse for a human being could possibly do such a thing? It really revolted me.

The hawk was damn lucky to be rescued from those horrific individuals. The little explanatory sign described how the hawk could hop from branch to branch in its little tree, but will never ever fly again.

I was overcome with a desire to kick the people who did this. Really, really hard, in sensitive areas.

Sometimes humanity just sickens me. :(

[ mammalog ] 2000-09-11

FDA updates its info about breast implants: This medscape article (registration required, free) mentions how the FDA has updated its consumer booklet about breast implants. Geez, with all the problems, I feel sorry for people who willingly go through this just so men will stare at their breasts more:

...the FDA notes in the brochure. "However, most women with breast implants will experience some local complications such as rupture, pain, capsular contracture (a tightening of the scar tissue or capsule the body forms around the breast implant), disfigurement, and serious infection," the agency adds. "These may lead to nonsurgical medical treatments and repeat surgeries."
...The agency notes that women who elect to get breast implants "are likely to need additional surgery(ies) and doctor visits over the course of [their] life." Women "are also likely to have surgery to remove the implant with or without replacement sometime over the course of [their] life."

Having seen what some of the scars look like after repeated surgeries, (1/4 inch high, half an inch wide, 6 inches long, roughly), you couldn't pay me to have this done to me.

So sad. But hopefully this will cause more women to have second thoughts about the surgery, and maybe even forego it.

[ weblogs ] 2000-09-11

Darwinism, determinism, and sex differences: from a biologist, via Genehack. Pretty nifty.

'Genetic determinism' fosters the notion that, if genes are part of the causal process, then in order to change outcomes you've got to tweak the genes -- you've got to alter that one particular cause. That's a very odd idea. There's no reason why you can't intervene at any part of the causal process, no reason why genes should take precedence.
...Post-modernism and its stable-mates -- they're obviously all complete balderdash, not to be taken seriously intellectually. But as a social scourge they have to be taken very seriously.

[ books ] 2000-09-11

I've started reading Cryptonomicon: by Neal Stephenson. It's pretty good so far, I'll probably write more about it when I've finished it.

I was actually looking for a copy of Snow Crash to re-read at the bookstore, but they didn't have it (!), so I grabbed Cryptonomicon instead. (I think I lost my copy of Snow Crash in my divorce. It may have been Jarod's in the first place, come to think of it).

I'm amazed at how... dense this book is already. If I didn't know already about Turing and cryptography and certain forms of math, I think I'd be lost. So I'm glad I happen to have absorbed at least a few clues in these areas, that make this book more meaningful for me than for a person who may not have this background.

[ books ] 2000-09-11

A ranty interview with Harlan Ellison: over at the Onion. This is great! I never knew much about him, but now I am intrigued and want to check out some of his books.

He used to write for the Twilight Zone tv show (in the 80's, so I take it that it's the "New" Twilight Zone. They had some excellent episodes in that series - I wonder if he's the writer of some of my favorite ones? I'll have to look into it more...

(The ones I remember and like are: The Shadow Man, the one about the guy who has a bomb shelter in his basement, and the one about the guy who is frozen because of his stomach cancer and woken up in the future and healed and I don't wanna give the rest away. I'd really like to see any or all of these again. Guess I had better check the Sci Fi Channel listings.)

[ good the net ] 2000-09-11

Lawyers vs. Geeks: Lawyers win. I didn't realize that Greg Knauss of an Entirely Other Day wrote for Suck. I really like this piece he wrote about how the lawyers rule the world, and the geeks are not picking up on this fact.

...the Internet's collective response to one well-nigh apocalyptic decision after another has unfortunately been the same as the Internet's collective response to just about everything: posts, lots and lots of posts. Discussions and cries of hypocrisy and malformed analogies have consumed megabyte upon megabyte of masturbatory rage and self-indulgent self-righteousness.
Which, of course, accomplishes exactly nothing.

[ mammalog ] 2000-09-10

It's funny to grow up with the knowledge that it's expected for men to stare at your breasts with a look of lust in their eyes, and then you have a baby and here's this person who, when they see your breasts, the look is one of HUNGER, of YUMMY YUMMY GIMME SOME.

You know, the same way you feel when looking at, say, a chocolate donut. (or whatever yummy food fits the pattern for you).

Oh, and today I finally found a couple paint with water books for me and Elena to try, so I'm looking forward to that later. Yippee!

[ quotes ] 2000-09-08

Scott McCloud says:

If you can guarantee the results in advance, it's not an experiment.

I'm not sure if he's the first person to say it, but I like it.

[ beauty ] 2000-09-08

A stereopair of Oahu: I might look at this at home. There are lots of other spiffy images at the Visible Earth Project.

[ beauty ] 2000-09-08

Stereogram of the week: at Magiceye.com. I always see these things as inverted, that is, the parts that are supposed to pop out closer to me, instead look pushed in, away from me. Why is that? (Brain damage? Eye bizarreness? Sign of superiority?)

[ good ] 2000-09-08

How to truly get people to vote: Give them free lottery tickets, or rather the ticket stub you get for voting would be a lottery ticket. I like this idea a lot. (via Camworld).

[ later ] 2000-09-08

So now I know what "nar" is: Seems like a useful word to me. Probably some other good stuff here, I'll have to take a look.

[ weblogs ] 2000-09-08

Yet another good one: I hadn't previously read glassdog, but I like it.

[ weblogs ] 2000-09-07

A very nice piece on weblogs: Which I found the link to on David Chess's weblog. I haven't read her stuff before, but I now want to check out the rest of her site, given the quality of this piece she wrote: weblogs: a history and perspective.In this quoted bit, she writes about what happens to a weblogger:

As he enunciates his opinions daily, this new awareness of his inner life may develop into a trust in his own perspective. His own reactions--to a poem, to other people, and, yes, to the media--will carry more weight with him. Accustomed to expressing his thoughts on his website, he will be able to more fully articulate his opinions to himself and others. He will become impatient with waiting to see what others think before he decides, and will begin to act in accordance with his inner voice instead. Ideally, he will become less reflexive and more reflective, and find his own opinions and ideas worthy of serious consideration.

[ good ] 2000-09-06

I want to do this trip! This is amazing, the stories of trips on the Blue Star Freighter to Australia & New Zealand. They have fly/sail packages, so you can fly to Australia and/or New Zealand, then take the boat back to the U.S. (or the other way around). I grabbed Spencer when he visited my cube and told him about it, he sounded interested. That would be wonderful. I'd love to have a trip like that, long enough (30-40 days) to really relax and get into the whole groove of being on the ship.

[ consume good ] 2000-09-06

More info on freighter cruises: These folks specialize in them, and there are also epinions about them. Spiffy.

[ family weblogs ] 2000-09-06

David Chess is back from vacation: And I'm really glad, because I was missing his weblog. I think I would have to say that it's my favorite, or way up there, at any rate.

In his new material, he linked to this sheet he wrote, in which he wonders about the idea that childhood is perhaps Really What It's All About:

I'm coming gradually to think, or to feel, that children are basically it. That the important part of what humanity does is what it does, what it is, when it is children. That once you're, say, 16 or 18 years old, you're done with the important part, and now you're just part of the infrastructure, doing law enforcement and writing and technology and health-care and bricklaying and procreation so that the next generation of the important people, the children, will have a good time.

Fascinating concept, maybe he's onto something?

[ consume ] 2000-09-06

In the market for a really really HUGE boat? Then you should take a look at these ships and vessels for sale. These are probably the most expensive things I've ever seen for sale on the internet, to date. Joke stuff on Ebay doesn't count.

[ humor weblogs ] 2000-09-06

Torrez made me laugh today: I like his honesty piece. Perhaps I should write one of my own? Hmmm. It would be an interesting exercise, wouldn't it? Which reminds me, I need to do an About page.

[ consume rants ] 2000-09-06

Those Amazon hosers are at it again: This time, they're charging different prices on some DVDs. !! Depends on what browser you're using, whether or not you're a returning customer, etc. Way to go, people will really trust you now.

I just wish there were a decent alternative to Amazon. I've had less-than-great experiences with other online booksellers. Sigh.

[ consume good ] 2000-09-06

A different kind of cruise... can be had on a cargo ship. They say it's relaxing, and you can go for weeks and weeks at a time. Sounds really fascinating. I think it would be fun. Of course I couldn't really afford it myself, but it's a nice idea.

[ humor ] 2000-09-06

8th grade presidential defeat: Greg Knauss of an Entirely Other Day linked to a piece he wrote about his ill-fated bid for president in 8th grade:

In fact, things went near the exact opposite of 'well.' There comes a point when the word 'defeat' cannot adequately describe the results of an election and you must resort to the imagery of physical violence to get your point across: 'pummel' is good, 'bludgeon,' too. 'Maim' is awfully close. But to be as precise as possible, you can't completely explain my cataclysmic, apocalyptic loss without going as far as 'reduced to atoms.' You get your ass kicked bad enough, and it stays kicked, sometimes for generations. The kick can pass itself along genetically to your children's asses.

Okay, so I laughed out loud more than once. I also ran for student council once, though I had my sights set on becoming parliamentarian. I still have no idea what the hell a parliamentarian does. And I didn't come anywhere close to winning, by the way, but I did manage to read my entire lame speech.

[ humor ] 2000-09-06

Library System Terrorizes Publishing Industry: (DEAD LINK) This cartoon pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole mp3/Napster debate. Plus, it's hilarious (to me). I printed it out, I liked it so much. I even printed out a copy for Spencer. That was last week. I just forgot to log the dang thing.

[ humor the net ] 2000-09-06

Another great bit from Greg: He writes about essentially hacking a web site's "community":

But the Web invites participation, and the line between the front of a server and back is awfully fuzzy. Who's to say that someone is actually involved in a project or not? On the Internet, nobody knows you're a crasher. If anyone with a computer and a little rambunctiousness can start mucking with tightly organized systems -- Amazon, Epinions, doubly so for peer-to-peer networks -- then anything that expects less than total participation is just asking to be screwed with.

He's got a point, this could be kind of fun... Hmm.

[ beauty humor random thoughts rants ] 2000-09-05

If I were an Indian and I had the job of naming the months, I'd name this month "Month when small bits of partially eaten pecans continually rain down from the trees". But then again this will likely go on for several months. Or half the year. Whatever.

Those dang squirrels sure know how to drop 'em right into the open trunk of my car, too. Speaking of which, I actually washed the outside of my car this weekend. This only happens a couple times a year, mind you. Finally I couldn't stand the bird poop and other detritus, including this weird scum that sticks to the windows. I am not sure of the origin of this sticky hard-to-see-through film, but I am ready to blame the pecan trees for it.

Which brings to mind the irony of the fact that the trees are gorgeous and huge and I love them and all, and the shade they provide fills my heart with gladness during this oppressive heat (it was 110 degrees yesterday, an ALL TIME record for Austin, and it's fucking SEPTEMBER!!), but I am sick and tired of dealing with the myriad stuff that they exude. There must be hundreds of pounds worth of sticks, pecans, leaves, weird little pollen thingies, and other assorted crap that lands on our lawn, roof, car, and deck each year, which I am obliged to collect and tote back to our compost pile. Sigh. I know, I know, it's the price of having nice trees. It would just be a lot more worth it if I actually liked to eat pecans.

[ random thoughts ] 2000-09-05

I used to want to go to Burning Man... but then I read this. I hadn't known about the fratboys and spectators, poseurs and people puking and pissing all over the place. And also the fact that it's a big Corporation now, and the organizers threw themselves a party in San Francisco while asking others to volunteer to go back to the site and clean it up.

Not to mention the 97 people-to-porta-potty ratio. 97.

There might be things there I would find cool, things that I would like to do and add to the experience... but with all that, it just doesn't seem worth it.

Oh well. I guess I can spend my Labor Day weekends going to Kona (Hawaii) or Kent Island (Maryland) for outrigger canoe races. Sounds much much more fun to me.

[ humor ] 2000-09-05

Amusing Spam: I hate spam as much as the next person (actually, probably even a bit more), but this one actually made me laugh, so I'll share it here for the purpose of mockery:

Participate In The Most Important Decision Of Your Life!
http://www.RightToLive.com
Now more than ever you need to be an active partner in your own medical treatment
Medical technology makes extraordinary advances in supporting life after serious illness or accident each day. New cures and treatments are discovered continuously for conditions previously thought incurable.
HOWEVER, each day we learn about 'Angels of Mercy' that make decisions to 'pull the plug', groups that will go to extremes to harvest your organs, and overzealous relatives that are all too eager to consent to the premature demise of 'loved ones'.
Our attractive Right To Live medallion has the universal and copyrighted symbol on the front and 'DON'T PULL MY PLUG' inscribed on the back. Wearing our medallion alerts medical personnel and all others of your clear and positive statement of intent. Don't allow this all-important decision to be made for you by others!
Take action on this important issue before it's too late. Protect yourself and your loved ones.
EXCLUSIVE OFFER:
The Right To Live medallion is available in gold or silver plate. Take advantage of this offer and purchase our gold medallion for $19.95 (normally $25.00) or silver for only $14.95 (normally $20.00).
Act now while stocks last by visiting: http://www.RightToLive.com to place your order today!

What I want to know is, is there someone selling a "Pull the Plug, PLEASE!" medallion? I want one of those (well only if I'm brain-dead/beyond hope yadda yadda).

[ canoe ] 2000-09-05

Blogger Bad! Okay, I'm really miffed. I got some lame-ass Microsoft ODBC SQL error while trying to post an exquisitely crafted blogger post. Argh! It was about me canoeing this weekend. And I don't feel like going through the whole thing again, although freakily enough I can remember it pretty well.

I went canoeing on Saturday, and again last night, and it was fun. Rudder, good! That's all you need to know. Also, no weird back pain while I'm paddling, which is good. And my back muscles were a bit sore, which means they're growing, which is good.

What else? Oh yeah I've got space to store my boat at the lake, which is good. But it's really high up and hard to reach and scary when the boat is slippery and it requires an additional person to help me, which is bad. And I lost a lock washer for my rudder, which is bad. But I have extras that I got at Home Depot, which is good. But I couldn't find extras for the nut for the rudder, which is bad. But I can hopefully find some (I think they're metric sized) before I lose the rudder nut, which would be good. And on Saturday, Spencer took some video of me canoeing, which is good. But he was really shaky with the camera, which is bad. But I managed to capture two still frames, which is good. Here they are:

I realize this post has totally degenerated, but that's okay. Oh yeah, on Saturday when I paddled, it was really hot, which was bad. But last night when I went, it was quiet and the water was like glass, which was good. And on Saturday I remembered to use sunscreen and didn't get burned, which is good.

I hope I don't get an error posting and publishing this one... or I shall be very....put....out.

[ design the net ] 2000-09-05

A suggested test for usability of alternatives: Great Leader Nielsen discusses Regulatory Usability and makes an interesting suggestion for a test of whether alternative software is really usable (which would be useful in, say, an antitrust trial):

The legal test should be as follows:
Take an average person who has never used computers before and is given a machine with Windows installed.
Also give this person a CD-ROM with whatever competing software the case concerns (Netscape, Lotus 1-2-3, a different multimedia player).
Measure the time from the person has unpacked everything until he or she has installed the alternative software successfully.
If at least 80% of novice users are capable of installing the alternative software and if the average time to do so is less than 10 minutes, then the basic operating system is deemed to be sufficiently accommodating to competition.

[ humor quotes ] 2000-09-05

Cute quote: I hadn't seen this before:

God grant me the Senility
to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do,
and the eyesight to tell the difference...

[ beauty design my site ] 2000-09-05

About the background & graphics: Well okay, graphic, singular. They are scanned from a piece of marble tile that I carved. It's sitting here on my computer now. Anyway, it's a white Italian floor tile that I cut into several pieces. I carved the sun-thing in this piece here, which is about 4 x 5 inches or so. The sun is around 2 inches in diameter. There's a border on two sides of the tile, but it's not finished. I don't know if it ever will be.

So now you know.

And I may write more about stone and carving and marble and my relationship to these things at a later date.