cheney-specter bill
fawning flora



sucumbed to the lure of the vitamin water. (im told 50cent is a part owner of the company with one of the flavors named after him.) reviewed at bevnet.

im having a vital-t, at the moment, which is quite nice.

Slanted Door -- D and I had lunch there yesterday. The Shaking Beef wasn't as stunning as the last time, but was very good. Perhaps it had less impact because my palette knew what to expect, or perhaps the preparation was toned down slightly. Still highly recommended.

The greenlake beans with honshimeji mushrooms were also great. Green beans with shallots and mushrooms are a perennial of mine, and it's always nice to see an alternate variation. There was a bit of spicy heat in the oil used to cook the beans.



The green papaya salad is very mild compared to what I'm used to at Krung Thai in the South Bay.
I think they are missing the point, but:
FOR those who yearn for a well-aged, full-bodied vintage wine but lack the funds to feed the habit, the solution may lie with a Japanese boffin, a zany-looking contraption, a couple of metres of latex tubing and a few hundred volts of electricity.

Squirrelled away in his chemical engineering laboratory in rural Shizuoka, Hiroshi Tanaka has spent 15 years developing an electrolysis device that simulates, he claims, the effect of ageing in wines. In 15 seconds it can transform the cheapest, youngest plonks into fine old draughts as fruit flavours are enhanced and rough edges are mellowed, he says.
ive seen two middle aged women carrying umbrellas (to keep the sun off) so far today. anyone else been outside?
world wide internet television keep up with the middle east war here
Billmon makes an interesting point:
In that sense, Hezbollah may have found the sweet spot in Fourth Generation War: It isn't a state and doesn't carry the political or defensive burdens of one, but it controls enough territory, commands enough popular loyalty and has enough allies to mount some fairly sophisticated military operations, using both conventional and nonconventional weapons. It's powerful enough to be successful -- and be seen as successful -- but not so powerful that state actors like Israel can fight it on equal terms. We may be looking at the New Model Army of the 21st century.
Skype Protocol Has Been Cracked -- Popular VOIP technology, recently acquired by EBay. As a side effect, exposing the protocol makes it easier to block.
Interesting article on indecency and net neutrality in TV Technology. (Not online yet.) Frank Beacham conlcudes with this ... "In the old days, journalist like myself were taught to 'follow the money' in order to get to the truth in any story of business or government policy. If you do that in this case, it becomes inescapable that the end result of indecency policies and a lack of network neutrality protections add up to helping create an entirely new media delivery system run by the same gatekeepers who control old media."
Sony, Panasonic Launch AVCHD
New hi-def standard could be an effective competitor to HDV

New consumer video camera recording format, may find it's way into pro equipment. Uses red laser disks that should play back on both types of new HD DVD players. 20 minute record time.
Mtn. View WiFi net being tested by 100 users
GOOGLE SAYS ENTIRE CITY COULD GO ONLINE IN ABOUT TWO MONTHS

Anti-net neutrality types cite systems such as this as evidence of free competition. That's why my arguments focus on high-speed broadband. If the average S. Korean apartment can get 8 Mbps, and has service sufficient to support MPEG-2 SD video, then kinda sorta 1 Mbps under ideal conditions doesn't cut it. This capability is very cool, but should not be taken as evidence for a competitive market for high-speed broadband.
anyone think this israeli offensive is good for bush politically (and neocon agenda) ? rice is publicly urging restraint. but is possible there was inside encouragement?
Sony To Distribute Movies On Memory Stick -- PSP movies on a stick

perhaps because PSP movies on disk are going away ...

The dying days of UMD movies are upon us
just watched part of a 1933 documentary about life on the african plains. there are two more this afternoon starting at 130, although these are specifically about hunting where this one was more ethnographic. all of this is on tcm. also some interesting stuff tonight including a 1923 film that chaplain directed, a woman in paris, and queen kelly directed by von stroheim and starring gloria swanson. also late night, orson welles version of othello. and cant forget our old friend meet john doe.
Argo aims guns at more than iPod

I think this is very bad news for Apple. As technology develops, there's a certain gravity towards "integration points". The "office suite" absorbs word processing, spreadsheets, etc., etc. The DSL settop becomes a network gateway. The cell phone subsumes the PDA, a camera, an MP3 player, etc. The portable media/game player seems like another integration point. The iPod is pretty cool, but will this MP3 player niche remain a stand-alone product? Only as a commodity would be my bet.
I'm trying to get worked up about this network neutrality stuff. I firmly believe the big telcos will try to screw the small guy if they can. Discriminating against VOIP clients - by introducing jitter, or whatever - seems to be the common example since obviously the telcos don't want you making free VOIP phone calls over their lines. But in that case we'll just encrypt our VOIP streams and run them on non standard ports. This is exactly what BitTorrent users are now doing to fight ISPs starting to throttle BT traffic. And given the robustness of client CPU power, encrypting all our communication streams would be very easy. It would also have all sorts of follow on advantages for the user in terms of security.

But maybe I'm wrong on this? Can the telcos somehow still discriminate against types of services if all traffic is encrypted? Probably I'm missing something, but this just sounds like another arms race that the forces of control will never win. I'd like to have some law protecting us, but I'm skeptical that we really need it.

Unless they outlaw encryption? Seems pretty unlikely. Or what am I missing?
Intel aims for 32 cores by 2010

Multicore/multithread approaches are common among processor startups. Many are taking the approach of having a large array of very lightweight processors. This sometimes goes by the name of stream-processing, as the programming model is to stream data from processor to processor. Intel is taking the less radical approach of using a smaller array of their CISC processors.
Three weeks after being let go by CBS, the former anchor has agreed to launch a program called "Dan Rather Presents" on HDNet, the high-definition channel owned by billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

George W. Bush's surprisingly good linguistic skills from 10 years ago.
Tiger force.