...more recent posts
Here's an article on the possibility of micropayments (the ability to charge a very small amount for web content.) This idea has been around for a long time, but hasn't ever caught on (for some technical, and maybe other reasons.) Now it looks like it might be almost ready for real use. Would this be a good thing? Or is it better for the web that people write things just because they want to? (from hack the planet, but now I see that Kottke is talking about this, and I guess it's hot on metafilter too. What comes around...)
I don't usually like to get cc's of joke mail, but I did get a funny one relating to the latest virus (which I've already received about twenty copies of, at work).
It's the Voluntary Compliance Virus: "please erase your hard drive, then send this message to everyone you know. Thank you for your cooperation."
foreward from gore vidals 1991 book about hl mencken.
How about this new sport (?): geocache. Thanks to the improved Global Positioning System (GPS) information now available to people without security clearances, all sorts of new opportunities have been opened up. Like this crazy sport (again: ?) where people hide caches of "stuff" around the planet (often in pretty out of the way, hard to get to places) and then players try to find the stuff. Not really a sport I guess, but sort of interesting. Somebody stop me if you hear I'm getting into this. From the site
"Geocaches are already located in many locations around the world. Many thanks go out to the geocachers that have placed geocaches. It's just as challenging to create a good geocache as it is to find one. If you find a good geocache and you enjoyed the adventure of the journey to find it, be sure to thank the geocacher by writing your comments in the logbook or sending them an email. Geocaching can be a fun and rewarding new sport that welcomes us to the 21st century with many new adventures."
Welcome to Mark, new author of roll your own one lap (although possibly that's not really the title.) I'm not exactly sure what this is going to be, but he comes with high recommendations. Not sure if he is reading this page, but feel free to introduce yourself Mark, if you want. Or not. Either way we'll check out what you are doing, which isn't too clear to me at this point, but I believe it involves some love of auto racing, combined with a (chronical of a?) sabbatical from the wild world of information technology. This may or may not become the future home of his page, so make real nice, and maybe we can add another to our strange little world.
this is kind of interesting, the presidential aircraft gallery at the usaf museum.
More trouble with names and fancy language.
Owing to priority rules in paleontological nomenclature, Tyrannosaurus rex is in danger of losing its name. Say it ain’t so, Manospondylus! (via Ancient World Web)
Yes, the site was down for some time yesterday afternoon/evening. I'm not sure of the exact length of the outage. When I got home from a late dinner everything was back up. I know some of you are getting really slow connection speeds (although for others it seems O.K.) I'm trying to understand this problem, and while I'm not near any sort of solution, I have learned a bit more about internet topology. Hopefully we'll be able to get everyone up to speed soon.
im not sure. does this belong in sustenance? i guess that depends on who you are asking.
I put some navigation links on the discussion pages. Is that what was wanted? Also, I don't think anyone we don't know is reading the site, but if this isn't true it must have been a pretty frustrating read. I just saw this morning that if you weren't signed in, the system would print out all comments in a section all the way back to the beginning. This made the group page many hundreds of K, and basically unusable. Fixed that, so while everything is still slow, it is much more reasonable now. I must remember to keep testing things without being signed in.
what happened to my d-day comment? can anyone see it?
if you have some time to kill, barbelith has a fun little riddle to solve.
Today I am taking off from work to offer myself to the crowd scene that will be the festivities surrounding the opening of the new D-Day museum here in New Orleans, Louisiana. The rain that has been lacking down here for over a year has arrived so it is not ideal parade weather, and on top of that I am not a huge fan of parades, but today I will buy an umbrella and pay my respects to the men and women of the last great fight. I am feeling inexplicably patriotic today, yearning for something that may only be a myth, but what a myth it is.
my neighbors are having a party on the roof outside my window. the noise wasnt bad but ive had to endure the b52s rock lobster twice. i might have to consider arming myself to liberate my senses. make that three times. good thing i didnt sign any antiballistic missile treaty.
Made a change to the format on the (nested) comment pages. Does it look any better in Windows?
my friend bowman just got back from a trip to spain and he was raving about this restaurant which was recommended to him by our (me and jim) old friend christopher(the actor turned chef).
jim is it me or is it it--when i open page etc it takes a while to pop up?? aapl??
NCC3 has been cancelled (as some might have thought:>(
we can have dinner and hang sunday a bit maybe on 6/10-6/11 this is beging confirmed--dougs great aunt has her 100th birthday party on 6/24 (which beets a NCC anyday)--we may have to try to plan a fall gathering eleswhere--maybe we should all buy a house somewhere together--4 bedrooms!!!
O.K. I think we are ready to test out the new format. I've tried to simplify a lot of things. The new post information is now greatly reduced (but hopefully just as useful.) The main page is now here. If you get an error (maybe something about a problem accessing the preferences) you need a new cookie - get it here (if the first link works, then don't worry about it.) And, just to be clear, this is not a big deal like the last switch, so there shouldn't be any bumps, but as usual, let me know if anything doesn't seem right.
In reference to mr. dratfink's Nike comments..."specious at best...," yeah you right. Nike has few equals in representing the worst of what this country is becoming in the sense of irrelevant consumerism, mismanaged energy, and hypocrisy. I haven't seen the ad but the mere description was enough to curdle the juices in my stomach.
And if I may combine two arguments here, let's not just throw away all our guns, let's throw them at our tv screens. Elvis lives.
I remember Dave linked to a story a long time ago about "number stations." These are shortwave broadcasts that have been on the air for decades. They feature only a single voice reading lists of seemingly random numbers. These number stations are widely believed to be a method for spy agencies to communicate with their agents in the field. NPR did a story on them recently. Slashdot had a story today about The Conent Project which is releasing a 4 CD set of these recordings, and sponsering a cryptograpic challenge to crack the code behind these numbers. Assuming they are not using a one time pad, which would be unbreakable, I can't wait to see what these numbers mean.